tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52561198688598007332024-02-20T23:23:09.690-05:00stairstepseight years / six babies = madness ensuesChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comBlogger318125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-20652388891768054772011-04-21T22:05:00.002-04:002011-04-21T22:29:01.523-04:00little updateIt's been a while... not sure if anyone has stuck around to read, but just in case, it seemed like it was time to force myself to sit down and post an update! ^_^<br /><br />We are all doing relatively well! <br />Beckett is a pretty tough baby, very fussy and hates being in the car so the two of us have been pretty much confined to the house (have I mentioned how lucky I am, having a husband that works from home so I can leave baby with him while I make preschool runs?) but he has started to calm a bit and has been treating us to some beautiful smiles and coos. We have been very spoiled with pretty easy babies up to this point - Holden was an absolute dream baby and we have found ourselves referring to Beckett as the "Anti-Holden" LOL - but we hope with time our newest little man will cheer up and be more flexible. Until then, we adapt!<br /><br />It has been a rough few months with Cade; he was finally diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder (which we suspected, as I have a family history) and we are seeing a wonderful doctor and we have, with heavy hearts, started him on medication. The first one was awful and landed Cade in the ER for fainting, but the second has been amazing - he is doing well in school, getting along better with his peers and his behavior at home while still up and down is more manageable. Cade is so self-aware and is really happy with how he's feeling lately, much more steady and clear-thinking. It's been very difficult accepting and adjusting to such a diagnosis, but now that we're getting him the right treatment it's like our wonderful little guy has finally been allowed to take the stage! <br /><br />The other kiddos are all doing well; Parker is such a sweet boy and doing well in school; Macy is getting ready for Kindergarten in the fall and Dawson will be starting a 2 day per week nursery school program with a one-on-one aide. We have a sweet new puppy, Nate, and are expecting a new kitten, Oliver, in about a month (as if our lives weren't crazy enough!!) and overall we're chugging along. <br /><br />Looking forward to a beautiful Easter with our sweeties - here are a few new pictures!<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view&current=150.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/150.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view&current=152.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/152.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view&current=122.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/122.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view&current=080.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/080.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view&current=129.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/129.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view&current=137.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/137.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view&current=oliver1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/oliver1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-46208204644550163492011-02-21T23:46:00.002-05:002011-02-23T09:17:46.287-05:00sweet beginnings<img src=http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Beckett/bnew1.jpg width=100%><br /><br /><div align=center><br /><em>Introducing...</em><br /><strong>Beckett William</strong><br />Born February 20, 2011 at 7:40pm<br />40w1d<br />9 lbs 6 oz, 20" long<br />14" head circumference<br />Apgars 8 and 9<br />Active Labor of 1 hour, 40 minutes (5 minutes of pushing!)<br /></div><br /><br /><br />I woke up yesterday morning (Feb. 20) to some cramping and lower backache and for just a little while I was hopeful labor was on its way. This was the first pregnancy to not only find me reach my due date, but to actually go beyond (okay, so only by 1 day, but hey, give a girl a break LOL!) The cramping went away, I checked my cervix and found it was so high I couldn't tell a thing and Beckett's head was floating so much I could barely feel it. I assumed I was still 3 cm dilated/80% effaced or so, for the second week. Amazing how quick you can feel discouraged.<br /><br />I spent the day cleaning up, determined to stay on my feet as much as possible, while I tried not to overthink when I'd feel the need to call my former hospital MWs and make an appointment with the only OB that attends VBACs there. I was comfortable going Unassisted only a bit more, when my sense of caution would win out and I'd prefer to be in a hospital.<br /><br />Matt took the older three kiddos to the children's museum while I stayed home and got the two littles down for a nap and kept on cleaning. Holden had been fighting a cold/sinus infection and was pretty unhappy - he woke up screaming 20 minutes after everyone left, so I took him and laid down with him. He fell back asleep but as I was lying there I felt some pretty low contractions that radiated around my back. I fell asleep and they seemed to go away, though when we both woke up (to Dawson screaming, of course) I had a foggy memory of being woken up a few times by them. <br /><br />It was about 4pm when I got those two calmed down and set out to start dinner - we were planning a yummy tri tip steak and potato meal, I'd marinated the steak and popped it in the oven and Matt was picking up potatoes on his way home from the museum. At 4:30 he texted to say he'd be home soon and at 4:45 I sat down to use the bathroom and felt and heard a strange knuckle-cracking sensation very low in my pelvis. A small gush of something and I wasn't sure if my membranes had ruptured or I'd just lost whatever remained of my mucus plug. I waited, nothing else happened, so I got up and continued with dinner and playing with Dawson and Holden. <br /><br />Matt got home with the kids (and the potatoes) and as I started peeling and chopping fluid started pouring out - definitely ruptured membranes! I was excited and relieved, but also a bit nervous. My water had only broken once as a herald of labor - with Parker - and it had been my most painful labor after Cade's pitocin-induced one. I was nervous of how I'd handle a pretty intense and painful homebirth. I checked his heartrate to make sure no cord prolapse and he sounded great. I started feeling cramping and backache immediately so told Matt to start filling the birth pool while I tried to continue with dinner.<br /><br />Pretty quickly I realized I was not up for sitting down to a nice dinner and Matt realized there was something wrong with the hot water tank reservoir that was only pumping cold water into the pool (even though we had plenty of hot water everywhere else in the house). Okay, awful timing and awful luck - 5 hungry kids and no birth pool! I quickly decided I'd have to attempt to at least labor in our deep soaking tub, though I couldn't imagine having the maneuvering room to push. I asked Matt to bring up all of my supplies and I got hot dogs going for dinner for the kids. <br /><br />About 6pm as the kids sat down to eat, I started having contractions. Within 20 minutes they were getting difficult to move around through and I'd have to lean over and moan through them. I helped finish up dinner though and got everything in the bathroom set up, continued to check Beckett's heartrate once an hour through a contraction and hoped we'd be able to get the two littles to bed before anything major kicked in.<br /><br />Matt had just gotten Holden down at 7 when I couldn't stand to be on dry land through the contractions anymore. Dawson got to stay up late LOL. I got into the bathtub and felt immediate relief in the contractions, they slowed and spaced out for a few minutes and they were actually very manageable. Pretty quickly though they got closer together, but they still weren't really painful - there was none of my usual loud whining, I just bit down on a kitchen towel, drank some water and chewed on crushed ice, and moaned and vocalized lightly through them. <br /><br />About 7:30 I checked my cervix and felt fully effaced, about 6 cm dilated but it was still pretty high - I was trying to mentally prepare for quite a bit more time to bring him down. Transition was always awful for me, I threw up everytime and the pain would get so intense I would be crying to go to the hospital for an epidural - I was trying to remind myself to be patient for that part LOL. But then suddenly 5 minutes later another contraction came on and I felt a little urge to push . I tried to breathe through it, not wanting to swell my cervix with too-early pushing. Then another contraction came very quickly, and my body pushed against my will. I checked again and was shocked to feel his head there and close to crowning. Where the heck did my transition go??? One more contraction after that and I couldn't stop myself from bearing down with everything I had - his head came out pretty easily but after pushing for what seemed like forever it felt like his shoulders wouldn't budge. I couldn't rotate him with my fingers so I lunged on one leg as best I could in the cramped bathtub and pushed as hard as I could and finally he finished rotation and slid out into my hands at 7:40pm.<br /><br />I was so busy protecting his head (I was worried he'd slam into the side of the tub) that I didn't protect my perineum or upper area as usual, but I was lucky to have no tearing anyways. <br /><br />Beckett looked so strange, his whole body was perfectly pink but his face was a deep purple - definitely had snug shoulders! He was silent until I blew some puffs of air in his face and rubbed his skin vigorously with a towel. He started screaming crazily and snagged 8 and 9 on his Apgars. We had some misadventures in cord cutting as I'd decided to try the umbilical ring this time, which did not work correctly and so we ended up having to tie up his cord with string - finally found an extra standard clamp a bit later to use. The placenta detached really quickly, less than 15 minutes after he was born, and looked great. <br /><br />He was SO fussy all night, he nursed for an hour straight and kept stopping and screaming like he thought my milk should've come in last week LOL. I'm still planning to pump exclusively as usual so finally about 10:30 we gave him 1 oz of formula, which he sucked down in a minute and then promptly fell asleep for 5 hours, finally content. He's been much more mellow today, nursing well and sleeping a lot. <br /><br />It was an unbelievably easy and fast (and low-pain!) labor, I am just a bit sore and his face is pretty beaten up, bleeds in both eyes and light bruising all around his face but we are both doing great overall - it was a perfect note with which to end this chapter in our lives! :) <br /><br />A few more pics - he looks EXACTLY like Holden did!! So blessed with another gorgeous, healthy boy! ^_^ <br /><br /><img src=http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Beckett/bnew2.jpg width=100%><br /><br /><img src=http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Beckett/bnew4.jpg width=100%><br /><br /><img src=http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Beckett/bnew3.jpg width=100%>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-55025786501155578562010-12-12T23:30:00.003-05:002010-12-12T23:48:14.981-05:00birthday kids<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWFCN0816s7ugxxMqNTPvX_cMJb73uceHZbcpjbj42RMZsSdxD_IPfji5nS3GorOqFFHws5rEoTD-r3u8_4I3zMyr_Wiz6iNVM0eUymbHD1VuTfg0gFDpqNCTIeExczaMItQZn_40wk-NJ/s1600/m4yparty3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWFCN0816s7ugxxMqNTPvX_cMJb73uceHZbcpjbj42RMZsSdxD_IPfji5nS3GorOqFFHws5rEoTD-r3u8_4I3zMyr_Wiz6iNVM0eUymbHD1VuTfg0gFDpqNCTIeExczaMItQZn_40wk-NJ/s320/m4yparty3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550023308002040242" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fe6cmxB3lw2HdKlMF3lCqI76VbrrU8WilEoHLcVRX_77FNPXxSx6hZ7Z0ddkOh3_SLbnvwOjI26fzXoLILFjXr3kaPaA9TWvM24lje4u6EbJ3Ax0IkqFYXVfxgOwwxmxSZPL1jDlYmlc/s1600/h1ydec1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 275px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7fe6cmxB3lw2HdKlMF3lCqI76VbrrU8WilEoHLcVRX_77FNPXxSx6hZ7Z0ddkOh3_SLbnvwOjI26fzXoLILFjXr3kaPaA9TWvM24lje4u6EbJ3Ax0IkqFYXVfxgOwwxmxSZPL1jDlYmlc/s320/h1ydec1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550023311430661746" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtTsBYxnSMm2zD4eVzezhTqmIZ6KsOosZwUCDDoCwC5PtgTTSJR6ui3iDlapUEOO5BgkM0Oxa7-XT9M9_NjvymTMeSXxJhHNJrtik0Puqg-rKlcQWsn_Kp-DSTYKBJR4yzZ70n0H7wJTfa/s1600/d3ydec1.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 262px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtTsBYxnSMm2zD4eVzezhTqmIZ6KsOosZwUCDDoCwC5PtgTTSJR6ui3iDlapUEOO5BgkM0Oxa7-XT9M9_NjvymTMeSXxJhHNJrtik0Puqg-rKlcQWsn_Kp-DSTYKBJR4yzZ70n0H7wJTfa/s320/d3ydec1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550023299104228402" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2b-982UpcV6ZWVHXIvi63qskm2M5xPi98dtmJL9V1lLJXT3MZKo70L-yTc6LjBudgjQtTpwqz4tyHW_WzebG7JuGQvFD-cvobX7cJVOiDEbufFNIUMLfaAeCuFcsddiLdICmXc0yo0om/s1600/d3ydec2.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB2b-982UpcV6ZWVHXIvi63qskm2M5xPi98dtmJL9V1lLJXT3MZKo70L-yTc6LjBudgjQtTpwqz4tyHW_WzebG7JuGQvFD-cvobX7cJVOiDEbufFNIUMLfaAeCuFcsddiLdICmXc0yo0om/s320/d3ydec2.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5550023295869674786" /></a><br /><br />Just a quick one tonight - more pics to come - to post pics of our fall/winter birthday lineup. Happy 1st Birthday to Holden, Happy 4th Birthday to Macy and today, Happy 3rd Birthday to Dawson!!<br /><br />We will be celebrating for our little monkey boy right after Christmas, but he practiced his cake-raiding skills during Macy and Holden's joint party LOL! :)Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-7566203935060972742010-12-03T14:25:00.003-05:002010-12-04T21:49:25.987-05:00the hardest thing<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF5mon_KIJ4M1tPKy2IlXdHGkHpZlRwlSz9Dbm4ApELEesDy58vhLiBlci-birEmdwNmJvlbI8F_oSlSMSELhyufqGFL6mC8Y3QMfvQ3lCwBvem_tBeVVRg4sCOCffcC4RyvtbwhMSJ-UR/s1600/e3ynov3.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 311px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgF5mon_KIJ4M1tPKy2IlXdHGkHpZlRwlSz9Dbm4ApELEesDy58vhLiBlci-birEmdwNmJvlbI8F_oSlSMSELhyufqGFL6mC8Y3QMfvQ3lCwBvem_tBeVVRg4sCOCffcC4RyvtbwhMSJ-UR/s400/e3ynov3.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5546536197123590482" /></a><br /><br /><em>"Letting go doesn’t mean giving up, but rather accepting that there are things that cannot be." </em><br />- Anonymous<br /><br />I am very behind in posting - birthdays, Thanksgiving, many pictures ... but I wanted to go ahead and share the most important thing that has been going on in our family recently.<br /><br />This morning Matt and I sat for the better part of an hour and put pen to paper many times over, signing over our parental rights for our little Serbian princess, Emerson, before leaving her in the arms of a new family. <br /><br />This was not a sudden decision, though we are only now sharing it; we actually took the first steps toward this end a few months ago and have been slowly transitioning all the children involved toward this new reality. A couple playdates and meetings, many weekend visits, lots of talking and questioning and yes, much second-guessing, and now that all is final we are ready to share this very personal and very private decision.<br /><br />I don't feel a need to elaborate on all the reasons for our decision - I think anyone who has read my blog over the last 18 months knows enough of those finer details - but ultimately it came down to what was best for Em and what was best for our other children. There are some people who can't - and never will - understand or accept that, and that's their right to do so as much as it's my right to disagree and stand by our decision. To put it plainly, we didn't fit. It's nothing wrong with Em, or with us - we are each unique unto ourselves - but just that it wasn't the best combination for any of us to achieve our full potentials and more importantly, lasting happiness. Our family is large, active, busy, loud - all things that are very difficult for a child with severe sensory needs to thrive amdist. Trying to balance everyone's needs and still keep our family intact had become virtually impossible and most of the time we found ourselves splitting into pieces, me with Em at home and Matt with the other kids at a sports game or community activity. It hurts to feel like you can't really be a family, that all of the kids are missing out on the thing most important - togetherness.<br /><br />And though some people would say that you must bend, you must adapt, you must deal - we refuse to accept that for our kids, including Em. Just as much as we want to enjoy our biological children and make memories as a family, we also want that for Em and at some point, we had to admit that bending to the point of breaking was only hurting us and hurting her - and we all deserved more than that. <br /><br />As always, we want Em to progress to the best of her ability, on her own timeline, and to be happy and connected and <em>part of something</em> while she does it. It is probably one of the hardest things for a parent to do, to admit that they are not the best ones to make that happen. But however hard it is, it's still the right thing. <br /><br />I did not always feel that way, and admit when we first started our adoption journey and I came across "disruption" I was horrified. How could someone consciously take in a child, only to cast them out? But I suppose I had a similar difficult time understanding how birth mothers gave up a biological child for adoption. And as it often does, life forced me to walk that path so that I might understand, and remember to check my judgements on decisions I've never been in the position to make.<br /><br />I am positive that some of this decision is motivated by my own limitations - what I feel I can and cannot handle, what I'm willing to handle - and I accept that often disappointing humanness in me. Down syndrome may not have been able to gift me with an infinite amount of patience and grace, but it certainly taught me to accept and even embrace the qualities - positive and negative - that lie within each of us. I am sure that it is that reality which many people find fault in when it comes to adoption disruption and perhaps adoption in general. Very rarely is a child given up by a parent, whether they be teenagers or seasoned adoptive parents - at birth, or after a few weeks, or a few years - without the parent knowing that possibly, somewhere deep inside, they had it in them to continue on. But I think perhaps it is part of our parental instincts to want more than that for our children - to want them not to have "just enough" but to have as much as life will allow. And while we probably could continue on in this difficult, stumbling dance trying to parent all to our best ability, only our own sense of morality and duty would benefit. Reality, however, for our biological children and for our adopted child, would be the thing to suffer. And I'm not willing to let that happen. <br /><br />The fact is that no matter what this says about us, or me, we are at peace with it. There's really no argument, no disparaging remark, no judgemental comment, that I have not made to myself many times over in the last few months. Sophocles had it right when he stated, <em>"There is no witness so terrible, no accuser so powerful as conscience which dwells within us."</em> But I think often our conscience serves to show us the fallacies of our own moral arguments - it teaches us to be more understanding, more open-minded, more compassionate ... especially toward ourselves.<br /><br />Developmental milestones and all other practical issues aside, I know we did two great things for Em; the greatest being getting her out of the cell she laid in for 22 months and the second greatest being getting her to the amazing family we feel sure is better able to help her find herself, her own potential, and as much happiness as all children should have. Everything else in between pales in significance and whatever failings we struggle with in our hearts, we do not doubt those two successes.<br /><br />This has been a very emotional and difficult time for our family and we know the coming weeks and months will be that much harder. We are very fortunate to have family and friends who are all incredibly supportive and understanding of our decision. I will be moderating comments on this blog for some time to come and while everyone is entitled to share whatever opinion they feel they need to, for those who feel unable to share with a loved one or friend in real life and instead must direct it toward us - I will not be publishing any negative, critical or hurtful comments. I will make only this one response, to blanket all of them - <em>I respect your opinion. I am very sorry you feel that way and I wish you the best, as I'm sure you would wish us and Em!</em> Our family is healing right now and I won't waste one ounce of emotional energy on further explaining or defending this incredibly difficult choice. We also sincerely appreciate comments, thoughts and prayers of support.<br /><br />We are grateful to Em's new family for inspiring us and supporting us so much along the way and we are especially grateful to Em, for all of her lessons and especially for all of the snorting giggles and crinkly-eyed smiles that we will miss the most. We can't wait to see what this next exciting chapter will hold for you, little one.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-39145291170206884432010-10-05T10:52:00.001-04:002010-10-05T15:29:41.429-04:00the bodacious letter "B"<strong>B is for Busy.</strong><br />Which is what we have been the last few weeks! Soccer for Cade and Parker, trying to get 5 kids ready for and off to a new school year, deciding not to send 2 of them (Dawson and Emerson), a prenatal appointment and ultrasound, the usual stuff. Everyone is doing really well, especially our school-goers (including our newest, Macy, who loves PreK!)<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=m3ysep2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/m3ysep2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><strong>B is for Birthdays.</strong><br />And Belated, too! At long last, sharing a few pics from Parker and Emerson's joint Big 5 and Big 3, including the achieving of my sweetest goal for her - enjoying birthday cake (and she did, an entire big piece!!)<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=e3yparty3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/e3yparty3.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=e3yparty4.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/e3yparty4.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=p5yparty1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/p5yparty1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=e3yparty5.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/e3yparty5.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=p5yparty2.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/p5yparty2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=e3yparty6.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/e3yparty6.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=e3yparty7.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/e3yparty7.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=p5yparty3.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/p5yparty3.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=e3yparty1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/e3yparty1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" height=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=e3yparty8.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/e3yparty8.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" height=100%></a><br /><br /><strong>B is for Baby Steps.</strong><br />Like the ones Holden started about a month ago, and quickly turned into full blown walking!! Like Macy, he's another early one and is already beginning the bumpy journey of learning to run and climb. It is so strange - but adorable - to see him toddling around the house with his older siblings. He is having a Blast! ^_^<br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/holden10m4.jpg" height=100%><br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/holden10m1.jpg" height=100%><br /><br /><strong>B is for Backing Out.</strong><br />Of decisions we took a lot of time to make. We were so excited to send Dawson and Emerson to the 3 hour morning pre-preK program at a local center dedicated to children with disabilities (but offering integrated classes!) but with Emerson never coming out of her last regression, her sleep at an all time low and the idea of her trying to stay awake all morning and engaged in an overstimulating, noisy environment... we called up our school district and said no thanks. Then, we found out Dawson had been put into a slightly older class (instead of an "early transition" class for 2 1/2 year olds, his only option in the morning was the 3-5 year old class) and after taking him for one day and spending the whole 3 hours with him, I was very disappointed - and a little shocked - by the reality of the class. Overbooked, tons of crying kiddos either very emotionally delayed and in their own little worlds or leaps and bounds older and further along developmentally than Dawson and huge safety issues for a 2 year old with DS. I basically served as his one-on-one aide all day, coming to his rescue on the playground when none of the teachers or aides would, and as a one-on-one aide wasn't part of his IEP as it wasn't seen as necessary given his moderate delays, another big discussion with Matt and a phone call to the school district to request we go back to in-home services. It was very stressful to switch gears so much but the program was not at all what we had envisioned for the little ones, so absolutely the right decision.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=d2ysep1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/d2ysep1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><strong>B is for Boys.</strong><br />Our oldest two have had a very easy transition back to school - Parker started Kindergarten and it was just another day's adventure for him, no tears or worries and ready to go. So far things are going well and the boys love being able to ride the bus together and see each other at recess. They are pretty darn adorable standing at the end of our driveway, obscured by too-big backpacks, swaying from foot to foot and waiting impatiently. Cade has surprised and delighted us with how well he's already doing - his very first spelling test got him 9/10 correct and a new DVD for a reward! He still has moments of difficulty but overall it's clear to us that he's maturing and learning to cope with his challenges - so glad we stopped the medication!<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=cpschool10a.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/cpschool10a.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=cpschool10b.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/cpschool10b.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a><br /><br /><strong>B is for Beckett.</strong><br />That's right, our ultrasound at 16 weeks to check on those darn Subchorionic Hematomas revealed we are, as suspected, having another beautiful baby boy!!! The kids are all excited - Macy is a bit disappointed it's not a girl, as was I for a while, but seeing as her daily mantra is, "Holden is so, so, SO cute!" she is looking forward to another darling boy in her life. Our regular level II ultrasound was on the 30th and all looks great and the hematomas are now gone! We are now half way there! All in all, things looked good, and these days, we can't ask for anything more! ^_^ Here are some pics of our newest cutie and his home! :)<br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/ff/b6bell17w5d.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"><br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/ff/b16wus2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"><br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/ff/b16wus1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket">Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-89156053633227794692010-08-11T00:09:00.000-04:002010-08-11T00:09:00.571-04:00always somethingJust a little update, as life is pretty busy right now, getting ready for school to start and a lot on my mind! We celebrated Parker's 5th and Emerson's 3rd birthdays last weekend and I have, as always, lots of great pictures to share. Hopefully I'll actually get them posted this week.<br /><br />I had my NT scan last Friday and good news is baby looks great - NT measurement was only 0.7mm (great results are less than 2mm, so ours were pretty much fabulous), great heartbeat, baby measuring right on track and moving all over the place. <br />Bad news is that not only did the Subchorionic Hematoma (SCH) not resolve, but there is now a second one. They're both small, but I was really hoping it would be gone by now and instead it multiplied. I have a follow-up ultrasound in 4 weeks to check on them and until then need to take it easy and keep my stress to a minimum. (Apparently they didn't notice the fact I have 6 kids at home!!!) I am doing my best to follow the advice and not worry too much, but it's hard. If the SCHs don't resolve it will likely mean no homebirth as I'll have an increased risk of preterm labor and placental abruption. But of course my immediate concern is miscarriage. Again though, trying to stay hopeful and relaxed! :)<br /><br />Here are some pics of our little Pinocchio-Monkey Child. It changes daily but for now I am thinking <strong>BLUE</strong>! ^_^<br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/ff/ba611w6d2.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%><br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/ff/ba611w6d1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%><br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/ff/ba611w6d3.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-55588616724125129042010-07-17T09:12:00.004-04:002010-07-17T22:21:58.481-04:00luckyIt's been a busy couple weeks, lots of pics to share, hopefully I'll get them posted in the coming week! We took the kiddos to the ScienceCenter in Ithaca, including Em (last time she got to spend the day with the Outman family, as she previously got terribly overstimulated at the museum) and this time she did wonderfully! She was looking around, playing in the huge "red blood cell" ball pit LOL, and was generally happy and curious. Dawson, on the other hand, decided it was his turn to spin my perspective and when he wasn't trying to desperately launch himself back into the ball pit (who can blame him, everyone loves swimming in red blood cells!), he was whining or crying. Hopefully those two get better handling their emotions/sensory overloads as they get older! ^_^<br /><br />So, for today's post ... it seemed like it was time to explain the crumb left at the end of my <em>last</em> post. ^_~<br /><br />It maybe doesn't seem grand (or even surprising!) but to us it's pretty BIG, as always! The picture below was taken almost 3 weeks ago and I've been dying to post it. :)<br /><br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br />.<br /><br /><br /><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/ff/b76w3d.jpg" border="0" width="100%"> <br /><br />That's right, we are expecting lucky #7! O_O<br /><br />I'm due on February 19, so as if our fall/winter birthday lineup wasn't packed enough, we'll now have two sharing a month! ^_^ It wasn't quite planned and was actually more of a one month, let's-see-what-the-Universe-wants before calling our family complete and doing something to make that happen. I had an appointment on June 9 to go over my options and well, decided to test that morning before going. Needless to say, I got to cancel it. ^_^<br /><br />We're feeling very happy and far too blessed and though going from 6 to 7 means big changes for us - a full-size van (!) and soon, some remodeling or looking into getting a bigger house - the positives of having another little life to enjoy far outweigh any negatives.<br /><br /><em>Do we know what causes it?</em> Yes!<br /><em>Don't we have too many?</em> Maybe!<br /><em>Are we crazy?</em> Probably!<br /><br />I'm 9 weeks today and so far all is going well. I'd had the ultrasound because of some spotting which was likely due to a very small Subchorionic Hematoma (SCH) and just a few days ago I got my new doppler in the mail and we found the heartbeat right away - 177 bpm, and that sound never gets less amazing! I've been feeling those early little flutters and popping corn sensations for a couple days. Luckily, I have only had mild nausea here and there and occasional headaches - easier even than Holden's pregnancy!<br /><br />Although we've always declined all prenatal screenings other than the level II ultrasound around 20 weeks, and we still would never terminate, we have decided to have the NT scan this time around (just the scan, not the related bloodwork). While we'll accept whatever we are given, we're hoping to have some reassurance (or some advance notice) of any issues we might expect. I am planning another homebirth but this time, another stroke of luck - the NY Legislature just passed the Midwifery Modernization Act and I now have a midwife lined up! I'm happy to have the extra support this time around.<br /><br />We recently told the kids and although Cade first gave an Oscar-worthy, "Oh no!" they were then all immediately thrilled, placing their orders for a boy or a girl and asking when the baby would be here. :) We're announcing to our families now, and are ever-grateful for having such a wonderful support system.<br /><br />We are busy, sometimes precariously balancing everything it seems on the head of a needle, but still - very lucky indeed.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-51369190121454591162010-07-02T17:49:00.004-04:002010-07-02T21:23:23.985-04:00all the king's horsesAh, that time again. It's been a while since my last post and we've had many wonderful days, good days, okay days, stressful days, worried days, sad days. As we all do over the course of a few weeks, I suppose. ^_^ So this post might seem a far cry from the last one, a wild swing to the other side perhaps. But it is just one post, written on one day. And there will be more - hopefully lighter! - ones to come!<br /><br />The boys finished school last week - they're both happy to have a break but of course already falling victim to The Big Bad Boredom. Matt and I decided to do a mini homeschool all summer so we have been trying to do an hour twice a day working with the older three, hopefully getting Cade more solid with his Kindergarten stuff (and close to reading!) and Parker and Macy more prepared for their new school experiences. It's tough with the three little ones but we've been working around therapy sessions and naptimes. So far I think we're off to a good start! :)<br /><br />I spent 2 hours in IFSP meetings for Macy, Dawson and Emerson and at the end felt like I'd just been run over a few times by a larger version of Cade's yellow Power Wheels Jeep heh. Emerson's took the longest and at times I felt like laughing and other times like sobbing. She and Dawson will be starting an integrated pre-preK program at Handicapped Children's Association this fall. It's 3 hours 5 days a week and they'll get all their needed therapies there. At first there was some confusion about how Emerson would even attend because her therapists were recommending so many sessions per week, mostly individual, that she wouldn't have any time to be "in class." So they talked and altered their recommendations. She's also getting a one-on-one aide. Nearly everyone in the room had this pitying, horror-struck look on their face when the therapists and then me were talking about her various issues and problems - we had to have something put into her IFSP about her self-injurous behavior so she can be watched carefully around hard floors and walls. I kinda wished I'd brought her to the meeting so they could put a real face to the scary paperwork. But she wouldn't have done well for that long of a meeting.<br /><br />Dawson needs less therapy, of course, and no one-on-one aide. He has finally started getting interested in breaking away from his momma so I am pretty excited for him! <br /><br />Emerson had those few weeks of blissful progress - eating great, learning signs, being engaged, happy, playful, snuggly! - and then the little ones caught another upper respiratory infection, hers seemed to turn into a sinus infection, and it was all GONE. Just like that. Humpty-Dumpty and another Great Fall. And so far a course of antibiotics, though it cleared the illness, and two weeks of health, haven't brought her back. Now the littles are all getting a cold again, and she is slipping even further away from us. I should be used to this by now, I suppose, but somehow this time it has been even harder on me. I really thought we had finally found that corner we've been looking for and were whipping wildly, joyously around it.<br /><br />Her eating is hit-and-miss, some good days, other really terrible ones. She has dropped about 1 1/2 lbs. So we made the call to the gastro yesterday. At this point, we think a g-tube is our only Next Step. Hopefully he agrees. Her love of banging her head into things and climbing up onto stuff and then throwing herself back like an Olympian off the high-dive have gotten worse. Her teeth grinding is back to where it was months and months ago. Her right cheek has looked swollen the last few days and she's been having blood on her lips which I assumed were from cracked lips or her usual cutting the edges of her sharp teeth on her lower lip. But last night while brushing her teeth I realized what was causing all of it - it appears she has been grinding her teeth on her inner cheek, with little molar marks on the soft skin left angry and red. I don't know how to stop it. Her sleeping is at its worst - she is up at least 2 to 3 hours in the middle of the night, every night, moaning and banging her head back on the mattress. I have sat with her while she slept for a while and even when she's asleep she tosses her head back and forth fast. I don't think she has sleep apnea, but we are going to talk to the pediatrician just in case. She takes a short nap each day but spends much of the day yawning or lying folded in half, listless. Melatonin doesn't work for her and when we asked the doc about a sleeping pill he looked at us like we'd asked for rat poison. No clue how to get her better rested.<br /><br />I've also been talking with the cardiologist out in San Francisco who does the robotic heart repairs because well, we are trying to find any possible cause for her issues. He reviewed her records from our cardiologist and recommended she have surgery now rather than later, unless they want to "beef her up" - if only it were that easy as wanting to do that. Unfortunately, after talking further with him, we've realized surgery in California is impossible for us this year as it would require a 2 week stay. Matt doesn't have enough vacation time stored up to cover that and we cannot take that long without any income. And yeah, I'm really worried about her having major surgery right now with her current nutritional state. <br /><br />So now I've had her records sent a cardiologist at NYU to see if he could perform a repair on her particular defect using the same daVinci machine the San Fran guy uses. Boston Childrens will be my next stop.<br /><br />We still need to make appointments for her to have her orthotics redone (she just gets out of them and is making no progress with her ankle stability), opthamologist and a developmental pediatrician to finally, hopefully, have someone look at her issues and have a tiny inkling of what might be going on - Autism? Something else? She isn't supposed to see the ENT until the fall but we wonder if she's getting filled with fluid again. We are overloaded with her appointments right now and running out of useable vacation time for Matt - FMLA protects his job but does nothing about pay for the hours we lose with each appointment. So we try to spread them out a bit. <br /><br />I feel like I'm chasing invisible bouncy balls down dark alleys - there are a lot of things we keep thinking IT could be, but never any answers. And no one in sight seems to have any.<br /><br />I think I should feel overwhelmed with her issues right now but I don't think I'd use that word to describe how I feel. I feel distant from her issues, because I'm so used to it by now. And just puzzled over what to do next. For her. For our family coping with her issues.<br /><br />We went to an absolutely beautiful park early in the week - lake, beach, tucked down in a valley of trees and rolling hills. There was no one there, it was quiet and warm but breezy. We had a picnic - Emerson even ate her mac n cheese sitting on the blanket next to me! - and the older three, Dawson and Matt went out to play in the sand on the beach. Emerson sat rolling a ball with me for a few minutes, then the wind picked up a bit and she started crying. And grinding. And soon we were sitting there, her screaming and grinding, me holding her on my lap with the blanket wrapped around her, shh-shhing and kissing her head. And Holden sat next to us, crawling around and babbling at me like nothing was amiss. And I watched the other kids playing happily. And she cried for the entire 20 minutes we remained there. And at one point I thought I might join her. But I held it in. And wondered how things would be for us as a family - going to an amusement park 3 hours away at the end of the month for Parker's birthday, we already know we will have to find someone to watch her for the day as she won't be able to handle it; going to the zoo, going to that lake to swim, going to soccer games in the fall when the older kids start up, going on long vacations - to Bethany Beach or Disneyworld or one day, maybe, Europe?<br /><br />But I try not to dwell too much on those unknowns and just deal with what I know right now, what I can do right now, and hope we figure out the rest as we go along. And if we can't, that we will figure out what is best for everyone and just be happy with it.<br /><br />We had some really exciting happenings for our family in the last few weeks too. But, this post has gotten long enough and I will save that for another day. ^_^Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-65492926158285262482010-05-27T20:27:00.004-04:002010-05-27T22:27:13.133-04:00under the big top<a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1967ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1967ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1974.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1974.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />It's funny how pictures lit only by dim yellow fluorescence can give such a sense of reality - in motion, blurred, hard to catch. Our life, the Greatest Show on Earth! ^_^<br /><br />Things have been busy-bordering-on-chaotic for the last few weeks; at least that's my story for my long silence and I'm stickin' to it. This blog has become my virtual Kitchen Counter O' Crap - you know, that one space in the kitchen you use to dump the dpzens of catalogs you seem to get in the mail each day, the PTA meeting notices, the coupons that will expire long before you get around to clipping them. I pass by that counter at least a hundred times a day and each time I stop, just for half a second, and I think <em>Wow, I really should clean that</em>... only to be distracted by the microwave beeping, a baby crying, a poopy diaper burning up in my hand and begging for the trash can. And so it's left another hour, another day, and it keeps getting more and more cluttered until you realize how much it has entered daily conversation. <em>Where is ---? </em><br /><em>I don't know, somewhere on The Counter.</em><br /><br />And so I have felt so behind here, so caught up in each day that the thought of going back and editing and organizing and rearranging the happenings of the previous one leaves me with a yucky taste in my mouth. <br /><br />But today is a special day for our circus and I couldn't deny it was time to put things in their place.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_193ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_193ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2027ed-1.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2027ed-1.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2068.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2068.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2069.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2069.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Cade. What to say for Cade? He was doing great for a while, gently medicated on his 5mg of Adderall XR. His teacher was incredibly impressed, the usual storm of his behavior had calmed to a light drizzle. And then... ah, there's always an "and then" isn't there? Suddenly his concentration at school was scattered, his violent outbursts at home more frequent. Exasperated, we asked Dr. Dum Dum (I mean, the pediatrician) if we could try to increase his dose to 10mg. See what happens. The last few days have been puzzling; upsetting. He has been cold, aloof, intense and angry - some ultra-introverted goth teen trying to act like he doesn't need nothin', no one. Still hoping it's just a temporary glitch as his brain processes this new amount of Stuff and he will eventually find a happy balance, but really, I'm beginning to doubt his diagnosis. I really think he might end up falling clumsily somewhere on the high end of the Austism Spectrum and I know it's time to get him in to that pediatric holistic-medicine psychiatrist we've had our eyes on and I admit I'm a little afraid to do so. <br /><br />Today I did something maybe a little strange, though I know many other parents who have done it - I took some of his medication myself (a double dose, though still probably not enough based on my weight) to see what was what. And it was strange; I felt I had jumped into his sneakers for a couple hours while my body burned through the medication and I was vaguely aware of the fact that I felt very calm, very serious, very cold and far away. Sure, I got the living room clean in half as much time as it usually takes me. But I felt a little... robotic. And it scares me to think that is how Cade feels each day. I want to find a med-free way to help him do his best and I am hoping we can do that this summer, free from the annoyance of well-meaning teachers who think every kid should be doing So and So by Such and Such time.<br /><br />A friend on one of my message boards posted <a href=http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-science-of-success/7761/><strong>a link to a pretty awesome article</strong></a> regarding new research in ADHD and other behavior issues - it's pretty common sense when you think about it, but it is always nice to see "problems" looked at through a positive lens. I confess I sometimes wonder if I am an Orchid Kid myself. Cade and I have a lot in common.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1829.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1829.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1992ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1992ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2004ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2004ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Parker is doing great, as he tends to do. :) He was discharged from speech therapy last month with articulation in average range at last and expressive/receptive above his age. He just had his Kindergarten screening this week and did great - he is pretty excited about the new adventure he'll be taking on in September! <br /><br />I don't think I've ever mentioned it, but the school district here is pretty fabulous and we are lucky to have an excellent Universal PreK program. His school has an annual Literacy Day where the kiddos get to bring their fave book and dress as their fave character and then parade around for some pretty cute pictures. Parker was adorable and can I just say it's amazing how much a $10 ridiculously large toothbrush can induce giggles in a 4 year old? ^_^<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2007.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2007.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2369.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2369.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1716ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1716ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1772ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1772ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Scissors. Ah, how I hate scissors. My sweet little Macy had an unfortunate incident with a pair last week and her finally-growing wisps of hair were shaped into the most lovely mullet you can imagine. $13 (with tip) at my favorite day spa later and she has a cute bob that will keep her cool for the summer. She is still working on potty-training (ugh) and is ever the Little Mother. I'm convinced she will grow up either to be a Physical or Occupational therapist or raise a whole brood of kids (2 boys and 13 girls, according to her ^_~). She continues to be smart, silly and affectionate and I will miss her terribly when she starts PreK this fall. We are making huge progress with her speech articulation issues, though she will still get services at least until Kindergarten, and her receptive/expressive scores are even relatively further beyond-age than those of her big brother.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1664ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1664ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2371.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2371.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2360.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2360.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2231.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2231.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Dawson; My Dawson. <br />Oh, my little boy is growing up. He is walking. Not just walking occasionally, for X number of feet. He is walking all over, opening cupboards, pulling out pans, seeing what treasures he can reach and pull down from that aforementioned kitchen counter. He is ready, he is set, he is off! He is kicking his red sensory ball all over the living room and yelling, "I got it!" to no one in particular, all grins and joy at his newfound freedom. Joy. If he were a girl it would be his middle name.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1675ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1675ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2060.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2060.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2207.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2207.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Gorgeous boy, littlest one - Holden is just flying along. He is sitting up on his own, getting down onto his tummy on his own and melting my heart by the hour all on his own. The other day I was struck for a minute as I watched him sitting on the living room floor, laughing at the antics of his big siblings and munching on Gerber cheese puffs and sipping juice from a straw - where did my baby go? I can see the anticipation in his eyes when he watches all the action around him and while part of me can't wait to run with him, the other part wants to keep him here, snug against my chest. No matter how hard I try, I can never freeze these moments in my mind; perhaps I just have an awful memory or it's simply a side effect of having a large family - but oh how I wish I could Remember This.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1791.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1791.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br />(Don't mind the black eye courtesy of a meeting with the Corner of the slate planter in our living room. Ah, the joys of cruising.)<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1685.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1685.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1799.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1799.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_2344.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_2344.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />I saved the best for last.<br /><br />One year ago today Emerson was being Gotcha'd. <br /><br />And for a while there I thought we would be trapped forever in our own worlds, never to meet except in silent passing, the last few weeks have found Emerson ... well, Found. <br /><br />She had an upper endoscopy about a month ago which revealed no physical abnormalities but did show inflammation from reflux and h. pylori bacteria. After a massive dose of antibiotics and beginning a course of antacid medication and a few days of me and Matt in a panic over the idea of a G-tube in our future, she just started eating. A lot! And though she still has strong aversions and preferences, she has opened herself up to a few new tastes and textures - she even imitates me when I chew crazily, chanting "Chew chew chew" like an overachieving train. She is trying. Finally. And she went from 20 lbs to 22 lbs in 2 weeks. She was always a stubborn bratty little thing - now she's a Chunky stubborn bratty little thing! <br /><br />The best part of all - she's WITH US. Her days of staring into space are long gone. She is with us, always. Even when she gets tired, hungry, thirsty or otherwise miserable, though she still will sometimes toss her head into the wall like croutons into a salad, she is still WITH US. And she is learning signs like crazy.<br /><br />Baby. <br />Eat. <br />Drink.<br />More.<br />All done.<br />Sleepy.<br />My turn.<br />Dada.<br />And my favorite - momma. <br /><br />She has even combined a couple signs and above all, the girl has Attitude. When she's irritated, she lets you know. And though sometimes her strong emotions take me aback, what a difference from the far-away princess we were entertaining just a few short months ago.<br /><br />It took long enough, but I am so grateful It came. The moment when I realized hey, yeah, she fits in this wild circus of ours. She is the tightrope walker, teetering somewhere between falling and soaring, and I am at last the grateful net waiting beneath her still-size-2 feet, enjoying the Show.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-68892205276697471702010-04-17T15:21:00.005-04:002010-04-17T17:36:21.993-04:00swing, swing, swingI am backlogged with tons of photos, a post about our latest trip to The Magic Paintbrush and too many little sighs of annoyance and pearls of wisdom to count but for now, just this.<br /><br />Emerson signed "baby." Emerson signed "baby" on Monday night. And on Tuesday. And on Wednesday. And on Thursday. And on Friday. Emerson signed "baby" when I prompted her by saying "baby" and lifting one of her arms into the position. And this morning I sat down beside her with Holden in my arms and she smiled at him and crossed her hands over her arms and swung them back and forth enthusiastically. And I <strike>almost</strike> cried. Silently at least, lost in that great battle to keep those tears back, the way the water tries to bend outward at the brim of those cheap inflatable kiddie pools. <br /><br />And she could have just jumped up and taken a Sharpie pen to the already-abused hallway wall and written the perfect equation by which one can create cold fusion (or some other strange scientific unicorn I know nothing about) or she could've opened her mouth and told me she was only eating <em>Gerber</em> mac 'n' cheese from now on and Beech-Nut and their extra 40 calories could go take a hike.<br /><br />I was beginning to wonder. We thought she'd signed "more" a few times a few months ago, but we couldn't get her to repeat it and it seemed she was just imitating and not understanding. Now, she just signed "baby," consistently, perfectly, appropriately, and all my fears of a lifetime not being able to communicate with this little princess went POOF! into the netherworld. If I were in Serbia right now, stepping curiously down those halls with the sickly sweet scent of Pediasure wafting from the cooler in my hand, I would have found that dear woman who made it all happen and thrown myself at her for a far-too-tight hug and thanked her for bringing us to this amazing, often-frustrating but ever-surprising reminder of the most simplest joys of life. And Dr. J would have thought I'd lost my mind (which she probably has thought from time to time over the last near-two-years!) but I probably would've laughed and not cared a bit. She helped us find a gift we are still unwrapping.<br /><br />Maybe she won't speak, maybe she won't read, maybe she will but it will be the kind that is frozen in toddlerhood forever. But we will have something; we will spend the rest of our days tickling and playing peek-a-boo and signing "baby" until our arms grow simply too tired for another swing.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1604ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1604ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1605ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1605ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-43035170736973846502010-04-06T23:30:00.000-04:002010-04-07T01:08:04.528-04:00turning corners on circular streetsDespite the stress and little sorrows of the last couple weeks, Spring Break thus far has turned out to be relatively awesome. Matt took a couple surprise days off work to <strike>prevent me from losing my mind</strike> help out with all six kiddos home all day long, the weather was unbelievably warm and beautiful (seriously, it's hard to be depressed when it's pushing 85 degrees outside), Cade's behavior seemed to mellow out and Emerson had five full, glorious days of eating three meals a day and sleeping through each night. My little sister came to visit on Saturday, and though we didn't get to the spa or a movie or even out of the house without children in tow, it is always nice to have your sister around when you're feeling less than blissful. It's also imperative to seize the opportunity to have another human handle the camera while you finally get around to sitting everyone down on the front steps for a photo.<br /><br />The last time we did this was May of 2008, as we were required to include a family photo with our letter of inquiry sent to Belgrade. Funny how adding just two more little people makes us suddenly look like we're auditioning for a TLC show (I always liked plain ol' "Stairsteps" for the show name, but maybe something like "Crazy 8s" or "Supernanny Rejects" would be more fitting?) Can you hear the sappy voice-over?<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1166ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1166ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />My beautiful little sis.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1105ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1105ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1126ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1126ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1134ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1134ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />I am not sure what inspiration gripped our little Emerson last week but she was eating a huge bowl of oatmeal mixed with a pureed fruit and some heavy cream for breakfasts, Graduates pasta meals and homemade mac 'n' cheese more fattening than I can even guess for lunch and dinner. She still wasn't drinking much but she was closing in on 1000 calories each day and she was joining us at the dinner table, no screaming or hair pulling or finger talking (when she's stressed about food, she does this weird thing where she looks at her finger close-up, eyes crossing, as if she was hoping it might be able to help her) and it was so... nice. She even had a little bit of strawberry shortcake - crumbs and all - one night for dessert (and LIKED it!) and I could see the recipes tripping over themselves in my head for a birthday cake She Might Actually Eat this August. The amount of stress it lifted from me and the entire atmosphere of our household was tangible. She was playful, happy, with us. I was relaxed, positive, patient. Emerson was eating and suddenly <strike>all</strike> a lot more was Right with the world.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1177ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1177ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />We have learned though with this little girl, that just when you think you're finally turning a corner, that Things are Getting Better, you are actually traveling in a big circle and there just are no corners to be turned. Saturday night she refused dinner. Sunday she refused breakfast and some of lunch and ended up with around 400 calories. And why hello, here we are again. She saw the gastro on Thursday; he sent us to the lab to draw blood to check for Celiac and we're awaiting those results before he scopes her. I really think a lot of her eating issues are related to how sick she is - she and Dawson have had a constant cold for over four weeks now and this weekend it got worse. I'm not sure I'd be up to eating much if I had junk pouring out of one of my ears, either. So although her regression is totally understandable, it sucks and it means she can't really grow, can't really progress, can't turn any corners, as long as she can get sick. Short of putting her in a bubble, I'm not sure there's any good solution. We just keep going 'round. I hate seeing these two kiddos sick for so long - the entire winter has been such a fog of sickness, I can even forget that Dawson spent Thanksgiving in the hospital with pneumonia. If Down syndrome were in human form right now, I think I'd have to go all gangsta momma on it. Enough already!<br /><br />The weather was undeniably Perfect on Easter Sunday and although we are not religious by any means, we were happy to celebrate the deep-breathing, sky-gazing, dirt-digging newness of Spring. I was hoping the kids would sleep in a bit so I could get some gorgeous pictures, but alas, they don't really give a hoot about the low-light performance of my camera, now do they? I think they turned out pretty gorgeous anyways though, and the colors flared up as the morning wore on. It was a day spent living between the sunporch and the backyard, and it was pretty perfect, even for Supernanny Rejects like us. <br /><br />Gooey cinnamon rolls from the can, blooming tulips, coloring eggs you take turns hiding in the yard until you think another minute out of the fridge will surely spoil them, baskets full of silly trinkets and <a href=http://www.sarriscandies.com><b>the only chocolate</b></a> I and my Pittsburgh guy cherish above all others, and a pink liner with "Emerson" printed on it that I bought when I had just found out I was pregnant with Dawson and I was beyond certain it would be our second girl. I bought that damn liner 3 years ago this month and I finally, finally, finally got to use it. It's crazy how our lives can race off in a direction we never could have imagined - this week at least, I'm kinda liking that craziness.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1321ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1321ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1312ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1312ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1216ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1216ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1201ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1201ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1223ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1223ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1209ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1209ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1235ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1235ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1234ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1234ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1215ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1215ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1210ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1210ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1225ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1225ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1238ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1238ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1259ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1259ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1279ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1279ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1284ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1284ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1294ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1294ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1301ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1301ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1304ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1304ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1318ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1318ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1328ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1328ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1338ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1338ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_1331ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_1331ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><em><strong>Happy Spring!</strong></em>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-37474057623128230082010-03-23T20:33:00.004-04:002010-03-23T20:41:21.965-04:00redactedUgh, I deleted my last post. <br /><br />Not accidentally, of course, but it was too cynical even for me. If it ruined anyone's day, apologies. <br /><br />I used to joke that I was not only a glass-half-empty kinda girl, but a glass-half-empty-and-the-rest-is-spilling-all-over-the-friggin-place kinda girl. It sucks a little bit to be like that, but personalities are what they are. <br /><br />Still, I'll have to think of something nicer to say before posting again. <br />Might be a long pause.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-51663389704196299142010-03-19T13:20:00.013-04:002010-03-22T13:01:19.965-04:00I scream, you screamDawson's first self-served cone last week - ah, bittersweet. <br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0519ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0519ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0528ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0528ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0524ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0524ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />It's a No-School Day and boy, am I feeling it. I really can't express how much I dislike, dislike, dislike, dislike having no school and no hubby to help out. I think the boys would agree - even with fabulous weather and endless outside play opportunities, they both just get BORED.<br /><br />We finally settled on Methylin chewables for Cade; we asked for a 10mg tab to be split for 5mg 2x a day - it's a way to make this as affordable as possible for us as we have one of those awful high-deductible plans that even prescriptions apply to, so we have to fork out the $75 a month alone. As an aside in a blog I usually keep politics out of, yes, for those that don't know or have forgotten, Matt works for a certain second-largest insurance company in the U.S. and I did as well before Parker was born. We have seen it all, we know how it really works in this evil industry, we've felt the burn of being one of the UnderInsured and so we are proud supporters of a Government-Takeover-of-Healthcare, even if that Takeover resulted eventually in Matt being out of work. The poor misguided souls who don't understand the need for such a thing have never been on the receiving end of emails instructing you to purposely delete files waiting for review and spelling out lies to tell said poor misguided souls who think Private-run healthcare is infinitely superior to Government-run healthcare. Single-payer all the way, baby. (Okay, enough said on that, for now at least!) <br /><br />The pedi informed us this morning the script was ready to be picked up - you know you've gone over to The Dark Side when your kid's prescription can't be legally called into a pharmacy because it's a "controlled substance" - and Matt fully intended to do so on his lunch break. Unfortunately, Cade decided to use that time to run downstairs and let our dog outside (for the fourth or fifth time), forcing Matt to spend the entire time searching the neighborhood for him ... finally, a few minutes ago the Dog Warden called. If this keeps up, we'll have to start inviting him to birthday parties. And all I can do is shake my head at the awful irony of it all and hope chemicals have better luck than I have to get this child to STOP DOING THIS CRAP. The drugs will have to wait until tomorrow.<br /><br />This morning he woke up, snuck out of his room and spilled blue paint on the nursery floor (Dawson & Holden's French-circus room-in-progress). Yesterday afternoon he took my brand new camera out for an unauthorized testdrive in the backyard. It came back covered in mud but still intact, at least, and had me sorely wishing I'd splurged on the extra warranty. He sure knows how to make the best use of sunlight though, I have to admit; perhaps there's a career there somewhere.<br /> <br />Looking back through the saccharine posts leading up to Em's adoption, all this sarcasm feels foreign on this blog. And yet, believe it or not, that was who I used to be. Before Dawson. Before Down syndrome. I used to think DS was a cure-all for the lower elements of humanity. Maybe it was just a temporary patch. I don't mind though; it helps to laugh at it instead of crying about it. <br />It's like coming home again.<br /><br />Our B-eautiful house.<br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0602ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0602ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0611ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0611ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0616ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0616ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />This used to be my cell phone charger. Thanks, Parker. *sigh*<br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0953ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0953ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />And yet, sweet moments. Unloading my memory card from the last few days.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0584ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0584ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0583ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0583ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0815ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0815ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0642ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0642ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0566ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0566ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0573ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0573ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0570ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0570ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0556ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0556ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Dawson stepping through the last remnants of snow last week. We can't take Em outside if there's more than a slight breeze because she screams and gulps air like a newborn. We try to go out when she and Holden are napping, and I've been hanging out with her on the sunporch to try to desensitize her; but no outdoor pics of the Princess.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0658ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0658ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Dawson loves to swing. He holds on so tightly and laughs and laughs. I love how much he looks like he has Down syndrome here, and how much I don't care.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0671ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0671ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0668ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0668ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0888ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0888ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0679ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0679ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0681ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0681ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0884ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0884ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0701ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0701ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0606ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0606ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0782ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0782ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=mfaed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/mfaed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0804ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0804ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0909ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0909ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Look, Ma... no hands?<br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0906ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0906ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0913ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0913ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0850ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0850ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0823ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0823ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0900ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0900ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />All that remains of our patio table. Clean up ideas anyone? Ugh.<br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0914ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0914ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Cade's Pics during Aforementioned Camera Hijack<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0938ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0938ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0923ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0923ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0937ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0937ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0935ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0935ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0926ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0926ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0945ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0945ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-88125988062040067122010-03-17T12:15:00.001-04:002010-03-18T05:09:48.599-04:00green<a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view¤t=green-paint-brush.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/green-paint-brush.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />The chime just sang for 11:30 in the Frank Lloyd Wright clock in our living room (well, it actually sang for 10:30 because we haven't gotten around to resetting it; really, we were too excited about being an hour closer to bedtime to bother) and I'm sitting here at the computer instead of sitting behind the wheel of our minivan on my <strike>12-minute rocketing down the Parkway</strike> 18-minute trip to pick Parker up from PreK. Matt surprised me this morning by announcing he'd taken the day off, about 2 minutes before he normally would've been heading downstairs to get started (ah, the joys of having a guy that works from home!)<br /><br />I could be cleaning the kitchen, scrubbing pink paint off the wall from oh, I don't know, three weeks ago? or polishing the dining room floor or something productive like that, but really, I cleaned 75% of the house yesterday morning in a manic hour that has left me...er, a bit fed up with cleaning. So I figured I'd at least get started on a blog post.<br /><br />Of course, before signing in and putting my fingertips to the keys, I couldn't resist checking out that suddenly-popular blog I mentioned in a prior post, <a href=http://www.kellehampton.com/><b>here</a></b>. I keep telling myself not to look, but I'm a sucker for good writing and even better pictures, especially when they make me feel like I'm looking back at a little piece of myself.<br /><br />I normally would think it quite rude to talk about someone else's blog - I mean, really, high school much? - but this particular one has really had me in a funky mood the last couple weeks. I've found myself emerald with envy not over the author's ability to spin words into dancing prose like I used to think I was capable of doing or take pictures of gorgeous kids like I might be able to attempt if I didn't have so many of those said gorgeous kids or, even better, if I had several more arms; rather, I find myself both jealous of and irritated by those luscious first few months after having your whole world shattered and suddenly pasted back together by a miraculous little creature in an entirely new and achingly perfect way.<br /><br />I read this blog in a half-smiling, half-cringing sort of way, eyes tearing as they're rolling, torn up over the knowledge that two years ago I would've sat nodding and bawling to that blog, maybe even an awkward, "Amen, sister!" tripping past my tongue. Today, that greenly innocent new mommy to an extra-special child is for the most part, grown up and moved on.<br /><br />These days she is trying desperately to keep chaos down with her thumb, popping Prilosec in the morning for her very first peptic ulcer and counting down the minutes left to survive until bedtime. She is realizing each day that having six kids age 6 and under is <br /><br />simply.<br /><br />too.<br /><br />much.<br /><br />And there should be a natural law against this sort of thing. <br /><br />She is finally deciding to put her oldest on medication for his newly diagnosed ADHD/ODD/CD after seeing him struggle to remember some random thing from school he had just demonstrated mastery over 12 hours prior because he can't get his brain to work the way it needs to and being awoken at 6:30 in the morning by a disapproving Parker informing her that this child had run off into the backyard barefoot to look for worms. Part of her is feeling like she is embarking on a Great Betrayal of this child, that she is not accepting him as he is, that she is trying to adapt him to her needs and those of a harsh world instead of letting him find his own path to orbit. The part of her who now delays all vaccines for at least one year, grimaces at the thought of artificial anything and tries to feed her kids reconstituted vegetable protein (yum) and once drove nearly two hours to buy organic beef that was cheap enough to possibly fit into a very tight budget is now about to give her kid mini-meth.<br /><br />That girl has also decided to let go of her attempt to get a certain 2 1/2 year old with Down syndrome to eat like her age, at least for the time being, as Emerson went on yet another hunger strike for anything with the slightest bit of texture to it or the flavors she just can't live with in her mouth. Thirty minute epic battles of mealtimes are simply not on the menu for a woman with 5 other kids to manage and honestly, she's tired. And when a certain awesome speech therapist made the observation that she seemed "defeated," there really wasn't any other word that could fit the situation better. Because she did in fact set out on a mission, a mission to save a little person from an awful situation and shine her up a bit and help her reach her full potential, to show the world the magical awesomeness of having an extra chromosome; and so far at least, she has been mostly defeated by said little person who would truly dehydrate and/or starve herself into the hospital before progressing. And she's learning to accept that and move on, chugging through the grief and the stress each day to get as close to a happy place as possible and drag six little ones, often kicking and screaming, with her.<br /><br />And there's nothing beautiful about this. There is no picture I can take, no editing software I can download, to make this part of some book I don't have time to write. This is life. It's messy, it's raw, it hurts, it gives 28 year old women ulcers and calluses on once-smooth hands just at the place where their palms grip the wheel of their minivans a bit too tightly as they attempt not to be 10 minutes late to PreK yet again. Today at least, my hands are getting a break.<br /><br />And it occurs to me that maybe my blog is the anti-that-other-blog, or would be if I could create an extra hour in every day so I could blog. And maybe some people don't want to read this because it doesn't give you that warm fuzzy you're looking for, the one that makes you feel like you just ate a whole block of cheese and liked it. Perhaps I am just another green, a pretty shade of jade. And perhaps that's the color most of us weather to eventually.<br /><br />And I'll give Down syndrome and ADHD one point in this, one thing it's taught me other than how to talk myself out of being overly-hopeful and unrealistically-positive, it's certainly shown me how to accept how I feel and realize that it's okay. We don't all have time to document our lives with a sunlit slant - sometimes we just barely have time to live them. And it's okay. There are gorgeous moments, there are ugly moments and although most of us don't want to post pictures of our severely delayed child who has just pooped like a 3 month old up to her neck because she doesn't eat enough solid texture to bulk it up, <em>that</em> is a real, not-so-beautiful but still just as worth it, life.<br /><br />And what do you know, it's 12:15 and half of my troop just pulled into the driveway. Time's up. Back to reality.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-41388631847864577402010-03-07T06:41:00.006-05:002010-03-07T07:33:28.603-05:00hunger painsLast week was a bit of a blur, like the "chooo chooo"s stumbling from Dawson's lips these days.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0251ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0251ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0256ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0256ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0259ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0259ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Parker acquired a huge case of Play-Doh which carried them through the week (and made a Groundhog Day of a mess in my kitchen) but offered a fun opportunity for sun-streaked pictures.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0346ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0346ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0381ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0381ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0332ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0332ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0379ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0379ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Silly Dawson, still loves to chew on the stuff.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0375ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0375ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0373ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0373ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0374ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0374ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Cade's clothing-sensory issues seem to mirror the eating ones of Emerson and this week found him rejecting one more pair of pants in his closet. His acceptable line-up is getting smaller and smaller and we're not sure what's going to happen when he outgrows/out-tolerates the few remaining pieces.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view¤t=IMG_0458ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/IMG_0458ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />My darling Holden is getting much more sure of himself on the floor - flipping over to his tummy faster and playing with those oh-so-adorable piggies of his. <br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view¤t=IMG_0184ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/IMG_0184ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0388ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0388ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0394ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0394ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0389ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0389ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0391ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0391ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0415ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0415ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0236ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0236ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Dawson and Em were still sick with a respiratory thing and finally put on the old standby Amoxicillin on Tuesday - which unfortunately hasn't helped much - and after a week of self-semi-starvation (200-400 calories) from Emerson, we had a few days of great eating (1000+ calories!) and wonderful happies from her and even a great tolerance for her new AFOs, and then Friday it all fell apart again and she's now back to refusing pretty much everything. She cycles like that - she eats great for a few days, accepting many tastes and textures and being a joyful, engaging, progressing child.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0400ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0400ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0395ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0395ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0238ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0238ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Then for reasons that continue to completely escape us, she wakes up one day deciding she hates the taste of everything (even something she ate enthusiastically just the day before), screams at the mere sight of a jar of baby food, tears at her hair as she sits in the highchair and then becomes this exhausted, malnourished thing lying on the living room floor, staring off into the distance. <br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0436ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0436ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />When she's hungry, she doesn't sleep well. When she's tired, she's even less likely to eat than she is normally. She had dropped down to 18 1/2 lbs when she saw the pediatrician last week (down from 20 lbs), then after her few days of great eating she chunked right back up to 20 1/2 lbs, now we're headed back down. We finally asked the pediatrician for a referral to a gastroenterologist. Honestly, we're at our wits end (or maybe beyond.) She's like two different kiddos - one well-fed, happy and the other willingly wasting away. We never know which one will greet us in the morning, and we miss the happy girl when she's gone. We're seeking some testing to look for any physical issues (reflux, obstructions, etc) but we're pretty sure it's just sensory/general difficulty. And if that's the case, we may want to get her a G-tube to fill in the gaps when Ms. Sunshine floats away. Hoping for some help from yet another specialist. We just want her to grow, to progress, to be. happy.<br /><br />Trust me girly, I know how you feel.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0447ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0447ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br />Seeming to catch the vibe, Dawson refused his favorite double-buttered Perfect Grilled Cheese yesterday with great gusto. He can do difficulty just as well as the rest of 'em! ^_^<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0464ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0464ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0471ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0471ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0488ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0488ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0483ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0483ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-504276758086725622010-03-04T21:06:00.013-05:002010-03-07T06:15:06.966-05:00first steps<img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyNjc3NzU4ODQ4MTMmcHQ9MTI2Nzc3NTg5MzM5OCZwPTEyNTIxJmQ9Jmc9MSZvPWY3MmI*OGM3NWQ*NTRlNWJhYWM4/Mzc5YjYyYzM5ZjNhJm9mPTA=.gif" /><center><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" width="425" height="381"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dropshots.com/dropshots.swf?p=0&u=http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/66723/20100304/194412.flv&l=http://www.dropshots.com/fyrestar#date/2010-03-04/19:44:12&d=1" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /><embed src="http://www.dropshots.com/dropshots.swf?p=0&u=http://media6.dropshots.com/photos/66723/20100304/194412.flv&l=http://www.dropshots.com/fyrestar#date/2010-03-04/19:44:12&d=1" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="381"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-family:arial; font-size:8pt;"><a href="http://www.dropshots.com/">Photo Sharing</a> - <a href="http://www.dropshots.com/">Video Sharing</a> - <a href="http://www.qualityphotoprints.com/">Photo Printing</a></span></center><br /><br />Between the chaos of preparing for Cade's birthday party and two very runny noses, Saturday night Dawson finally let go of our hands and started off toward the land of Independence. He took three steps before he collapsed with laughter and my heart stung sweetly to the beat of each footfall, as I knew it would. He did this a few times before we called it a night and after a few repeat episodes, on Tuesday I walked into Cade and Parker's room to find him walking five feet across the middle of the room toward a waiting Macy. He was in happy hysterics all the way. ^_^<br /><br />I of course rushed out and grabbed my video camera and then attempted to recreate the scene - only to find my video camera, like my poor Canon Rebel XTi, had called it quits. Pretty disappointing, but it made the decision for me on which camera to spring for and today I got a shiny new Rebel T2i along with a new 50mm f1.4, one of three lenses I sold when we were saving for a certain trip to Serbia. I absolutely love the new camera and oh how I missed that lens! Even the kit lens is half decent and the video is incredible compared to what I was using. Hopefully I am encouraged to get back to my usual habit of taking 100+ pics everyday heh! :)<br /><br />It is a funny thing about good photographs; they seem to capture life not as we see it but as we can only wish we could - the most important subjects popping out from a background blurred toward the edges. I have six kids age 6 and under; life is far too real for me to always notice its beauty. So it's nice to have something that can notice for me, especially those oh so spectacular first steps.<br /><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0002.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0002.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0030ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0030ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0039ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0039ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0066ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0066ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/?action=view¤t=IMG_0067ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/Blog/IMG_0067ed.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" width=100%></a><br /><a href="http://s667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/?action=view¤t=IMG_0075ed.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i667.photobucket.com/albums/vv35/stairstepmom/IMG_0075ed.jpg" border="0" width=100% alt="Photobucket"></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-52452519760889658692010-02-18T20:54:00.006-05:002010-02-18T21:16:23.136-05:00sick days<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizkSTU962bOUynllpEig86vbsH0og4UWHETu-CAK_RmCDgmXD-TRy8K-0rzyfrNO9TTFZXJg0FgL18Ho6jMLeTeHW6rzqaniD4z02mIVkIWViGXOMGniCg_XPp9yhfdiaunDt0uMR_piip/s1600-h/c6yfeb1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 314px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizkSTU962bOUynllpEig86vbsH0og4UWHETu-CAK_RmCDgmXD-TRy8K-0rzyfrNO9TTFZXJg0FgL18Ho6jMLeTeHW6rzqaniD4z02mIVkIWViGXOMGniCg_XPp9yhfdiaunDt0uMR_piip/s400/c6yfeb1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439768380797461122" /></a><br /><br />My not-so-little-anymore Valentine spent his 6th birthday as the first in line for an awful stomach flu that spent the past week making its way through our household. Luckily the Thursday before I'd brought worm cupcakes and bug-themed treat bags to his class - he spent the first five minutes ignoring me, of course! - and his *real* party isn't until the 28th at a local indoor inflatables place. Still, it always spoils things to be sick on your birthday.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxblXE-YOdc2Q_pemzsOCaHJ43ozlLJFBeYcr97orI6JSskDMqK4PGv-I-49MMamOU1CFRfuqUmqdYIDayWcR7MbiGPJ1s4XUPomqzU5g3sg5ap2BLIc3MmmbQWGjv1pE524NOybwNSHL4/s1600-h/c6ybdayschool.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 204px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxblXE-YOdc2Q_pemzsOCaHJ43ozlLJFBeYcr97orI6JSskDMqK4PGv-I-49MMamOU1CFRfuqUmqdYIDayWcR7MbiGPJ1s4XUPomqzU5g3sg5ap2BLIc3MmmbQWGjv1pE524NOybwNSHL4/s320/c6ybdayschool.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439769092964889970" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXLQoyiz3s3aNPGgIh-Xj2wGwhDeo4FM1w4aP7QDNnBDhEDDSAPYytz7xaihL6ghOyYtlnB6UHUDqsh7VAsLlzl-z2jqAOESHaSbTkUaBXQ2A9JzqVoGr0fmyNXQHex-cbfKsrP32bRK0/s1600-h/c6ybdayschool2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 290px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbXLQoyiz3s3aNPGgIh-Xj2wGwhDeo4FM1w4aP7QDNnBDhEDDSAPYytz7xaihL6ghOyYtlnB6UHUDqsh7VAsLlzl-z2jqAOESHaSbTkUaBXQ2A9JzqVoGr0fmyNXQHex-cbfKsrP32bRK0/s320/c6ybdayschool2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439769090820470578" /></a><br /><br />The next victims were Parker and Dawson, quickly followed by yours truly (who had it the worst, in my humble opinion) and then rounded out by Macy and Emerson. Thankfully the magical properties of breastmilk seem to have shielded Holden from the bug, but Matt woke up this morning feeling pretty rotten. <br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xGx2a_1VgOOFSWMO7taxfSamC7z0bVzuaqPpF-HI5196FNfnMhLW-zgTLsX6eqQOklG9ugp_QVMTfN6dGmF_bJzP0fdY3jKrDwq6nNBMVVEHUB_gKqQyXBtE4X5EnAlqYkR7Wrb0fefV/s1600-h/p4yfeb1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 264px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6xGx2a_1VgOOFSWMO7taxfSamC7z0bVzuaqPpF-HI5196FNfnMhLW-zgTLsX6eqQOklG9ugp_QVMTfN6dGmF_bJzP0fdY3jKrDwq6nNBMVVEHUB_gKqQyXBtE4X5EnAlqYkR7Wrb0fefV/s400/p4yfeb1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439770655916820002" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNA5m-ha9-YO8eSpzcPaDhvy_8elq0AqSJaz94rbLuOOrsVs24n2hYXDHm1qgRvbnyAQLQxoBwtkNVY_MIg5xj3jVbDcKFxlwp8YrWOY7-Ss3yJFHvwvfC535rJecOUDoGSUH2kiLLBfCJ/s1600-h/d2yfeb3.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 270px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNA5m-ha9-YO8eSpzcPaDhvy_8elq0AqSJaz94rbLuOOrsVs24n2hYXDHm1qgRvbnyAQLQxoBwtkNVY_MIg5xj3jVbDcKFxlwp8YrWOY7-Ss3yJFHvwvfC535rJecOUDoGSUH2kiLLBfCJ/s400/d2yfeb3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439770653075162818" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAjR_TZKNorZQ0HtS9Tg3oBfC_IqxV9QtTHpcogFuyg3cj5X_RBa2rBvlLcwpXfZQBRDPY0VWsY6yfgdWXFt4BxZZh5T38-I6bjnjj0x3F5V1eX4DgO9TbwahjNKztNJhBrD-LdN8E6RSD/s1600-h/e2yfeb13.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 272px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAjR_TZKNorZQ0HtS9Tg3oBfC_IqxV9QtTHpcogFuyg3cj5X_RBa2rBvlLcwpXfZQBRDPY0VWsY6yfgdWXFt4BxZZh5T38-I6bjnjj0x3F5V1eX4DgO9TbwahjNKztNJhBrD-LdN8E6RSD/s400/e2yfeb13.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439772418369220386" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLyhJt1Yqzc5E_UaKeyh6wCmcXShb4-zevYH0J5Q8lKbkdGYQ8BQQvlJLpicJ5TP3p76ZbEvqZ4jXBX9syz3DniQ2yESzkpS-guMg07mvMtGQGtQ9P32qnApOuErfEWJxYlVG3mEXBdM6/s1600-h/m3yfeb1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRLyhJt1Yqzc5E_UaKeyh6wCmcXShb4-zevYH0J5Q8lKbkdGYQ8BQQvlJLpicJ5TP3p76ZbEvqZ4jXBX9syz3DniQ2yESzkpS-guMg07mvMtGQGtQ9P32qnApOuErfEWJxYlVG3mEXBdM6/s400/m3yfeb1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439770647024934034" /></a><br /><br />It has been such a foggy, exhausting week of constant sheet-changing, baths, carpet-scrubbing and general misery. The kids went about 2 days without eating anything and even today only accepted a little. It's most frustrating for Emerson, who had a fabulous week last week with food - she was eating Graduate level meals and even taking small pieces of grilled cheese and cheesy puffs on a spoon - and now any texture at all sends her into screams and we're lucky if we can get her to take watered down baby fruits. <br /><br />Dawson and Em are truly the biggest sick babies ever LOL - many long minutes of lying on the floor moaning or crying. :( I just can't wait for the spring; I hate to see these two feeling so yucky and it has been a VERY LONG WINTER!<br /><br />Still, I managed to find some sweet spots amidst the ickies - getting a little bit of manual focus out of my nearly-dead Rebel XTi with the help of a bright day to catch Holden's wonderful smiles and delicious 17-lb-baby legs and a few more cute faces breaking through. Our tax return is in the bank in 3 hours and I am trying to decide between a Canon 50D and the new Rebel T2i coming out in a couple weeks (it takes video!!) and we are seriously contemplating a Disney World trip next year; it's hard not to chin up. ^_^<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDccbgPjpbnPu_fHVS9dhrL7j4p7OOOVQU-CYHQmttpUFdp1YHurv9za3yCl1Qp_cPJKY23gSLJrOBDfnSNlYLY41MIj9KeXhYCPuxe3cNGbKj3BmXxjjmWqlUs1sGxIVjhV1OHyIgTG7_/s1600-h/h3m3.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 321px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDccbgPjpbnPu_fHVS9dhrL7j4p7OOOVQU-CYHQmttpUFdp1YHurv9za3yCl1Qp_cPJKY23gSLJrOBDfnSNlYLY41MIj9KeXhYCPuxe3cNGbKj3BmXxjjmWqlUs1sGxIVjhV1OHyIgTG7_/s400/h3m3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439770646183302882" /></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVZ7KA995uYZE1k-uMxnqI0PKnWld6_HcppcNJtqgqYpWnXkEXsbWlQ8WjsJoY1t9pnEZtEhPTZJOYkyFDGrsj7hyeF2EXpG_wklTMvXj8Saqkh7KCzK6mQd_MVqeyxJa-_40oBaqPLNJN/s1600-h/h3m2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 293px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVZ7KA995uYZE1k-uMxnqI0PKnWld6_HcppcNJtqgqYpWnXkEXsbWlQ8WjsJoY1t9pnEZtEhPTZJOYkyFDGrsj7hyeF2EXpG_wklTMvXj8Saqkh7KCzK6mQd_MVqeyxJa-_40oBaqPLNJN/s400/h3m2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439772109441987346" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjkHPXJ2wEdJ2qCuWyQbg5srFlaoQt2dOleAZpWwzh93nHvCj0sfes4xBzW7WZnVaDN8ISlsyXcY4efnATyIF1E_T2Rr5JswZhGs-qJWai2bo4DJrr_Bg6itCuZ97Qz8T0SZuybDSua0O/s1600-h/h3m4.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 261px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijjkHPXJ2wEdJ2qCuWyQbg5srFlaoQt2dOleAZpWwzh93nHvCj0sfes4xBzW7WZnVaDN8ISlsyXcY4efnATyIF1E_T2Rr5JswZhGs-qJWai2bo4DJrr_Bg6itCuZ97Qz8T0SZuybDSua0O/s400/h3m4.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439772104163112194" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV7JJ9_ELx6M_ha2UKDXj6ySnXp9r7vj8P1Gqc23f3oR-DFScAkjNzndu9XdSi83zcBwubp6mxDyD_26XpO58XuEA7hyphenhyphenlJG0_ZGOy-qMBvRN27l1qiUT_Stzlmv_fQQNhuDS2Vr3irrHx-/s1600-h/p4yfeb2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV7JJ9_ELx6M_ha2UKDXj6ySnXp9r7vj8P1Gqc23f3oR-DFScAkjNzndu9XdSi83zcBwubp6mxDyD_26XpO58XuEA7hyphenhyphenlJG0_ZGOy-qMBvRN27l1qiUT_Stzlmv_fQQNhuDS2Vr3irrHx-/s400/p4yfeb2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439772101291944930" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikaI-r2wcjmyPJEvXy-Sc8_qchyTieKTw4dukVQwmYibFjFuoi5pbqxvYndZSNEde_USvZnuU70fOcZG8gcec-hQDvQoZRcuYSGh3jNyYTRBW5Ozd6U2sLUR2nOLMucbC5s3qVdX-sTViL/s1600-h/m3yfeb2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikaI-r2wcjmyPJEvXy-Sc8_qchyTieKTw4dukVQwmYibFjFuoi5pbqxvYndZSNEde_USvZnuU70fOcZG8gcec-hQDvQoZRcuYSGh3jNyYTRBW5Ozd6U2sLUR2nOLMucbC5s3qVdX-sTViL/s400/m3yfeb2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439772097250248898" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DsuW9ThktXK5r0PaKXHTQXgvgIj506Zb-3RZYQjpTZkyFywtN3-hMDPVJ0LW1BMuU1Oi3Oq4xutu1CMqW8bFUEYHcUWFEQ7UsZi1i7U-MG3MC5VDtAJTFw1nwawGhPXSuS2Eyv6YHs3-/s1600-h/d2yfeb2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 338px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3DsuW9ThktXK5r0PaKXHTQXgvgIj506Zb-3RZYQjpTZkyFywtN3-hMDPVJ0LW1BMuU1Oi3Oq4xutu1CMqW8bFUEYHcUWFEQ7UsZi1i7U-MG3MC5VDtAJTFw1nwawGhPXSuS2Eyv6YHs3-/s400/d2yfeb2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5439772421910574338" /></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-10999907415780635352010-02-05T22:24:00.008-05:002010-02-06T10:15:47.676-05:00the middle<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUj297nbNUFmEay14Lvhy3pNz0aRKklNe9T0pvhIfN-KYKtUwnF-qH3t_nmYfgq8P4_VdvxTTmNRa3XqAaB3YONUqzyDwz-ixBguM-VrNOX4icvZZ6aQ8IZbeQW2gfV-dMh708KPHUraJL/s1600-h/h3m1.JPG"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 238px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUj297nbNUFmEay14Lvhy3pNz0aRKklNe9T0pvhIfN-KYKtUwnF-qH3t_nmYfgq8P4_VdvxTTmNRa3XqAaB3YONUqzyDwz-ixBguM-VrNOX4icvZZ6aQ8IZbeQW2gfV-dMh708KPHUraJL/s320/h3m1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5434976677341952994" /></a><br />Holden has been doing so many neat things this week - rolling over both ways, reaching for and manipulating toys and expanding his vocal repertoire to all sorts of coos and squeals and even surprising us by taking a taste of baby food and liking it.<br /><br />I've been shocked at how absolutely delighted I am by every milestone this time around; I think because he is sans one extra chromosome I figured my reactions to his progress would be a bit tamer than they are with Dawson and Emerson. How wonderful to find I was wrong!<br /><br />It's hard to describe the intense emotions that swirl up when I am holding Dawson's hands and walking with him, when I feel him straighten up a bit more and pull his weight away from my support and it seems those first independent steps are so close I could graze them with my fingertips. My chest tightens, a cage of butterflies is flung open in my stomach and my nose starts to tingle beside tears that are at the ready. I am on tiptoe atop a tree branch and flight seems altogether possible. And then Dawson feels the uncertainty of his own weight and looks up at me, grinning nervously, before crashing down to the floor with a laugh while my anticipation creeps back. And then Emerson signs "all done" at lunch and it rushes out again. And each day finds me in this dance, emotions pulled taut like a guitar string.<br /><br />So how amazing to see how similar my reaction is to something so simple as Holden reaching his long fingers out to graze a toy suspended from the bar of his bouncy seat. And I can only stand in awe again at how powerfully Down syndrome can give you new eyes. It is like living life in slow motion, the idea of forgetting to stop and smell the flowers an impossible one with the roses blooming unabashedly against your face. And for the first time I realize exactly how much I missed with my first three children, moments slipped away to echo feebly in my memories.<br /><br />A friend (thanks, Gina!) emailed me a link to a <a href=http://enjoyingthesmallthings.blogspot.com><strong>blog</strong></a> that made me painfully aware of my own creative shortcomings and the fact that I really must replace my broken camera but also left me reminiscing, amazed at how far my emotions have journeyed since that first day I truly believed Dawson had Down syndrome. I wanted to post some short, perfect comment that would serve as a travel brochure for this mommy, but I don't do short very well. <br /><br />For just a few moments I was back there, examining him for markers I read about on some website after being unable to shake off my awareness of the ones I had already seen. I am seeing the single crease on one of his palms, and a heavy curtain of terror is thrown over my mind and the tears start pouring as somewhere beneath the pure emotion in which I am swimming our entire life is playing itself out like a movie in my head. Every once in a while a certain fact comes up on the screen and I zero in on it, pulling it into sharp focus and letting out an agonized cry - <em>he will never have children</em>. I don't know why but that one hurt the most, and it was the one I went back to again and again any time I started to get a grip on the grief. It was sure to send me back over the edge and that was where I wanted to be.<br /><br />And then I am sitting at the computer - exactly where I am right now - and picking up my cell phone when it rings. Matt has Dawson at the pediatricians for his 2-week check-up and all he has to say, in a slightly broken voice is, "He has it." And I am floating, I am gone all over again and I know, know it deeper than my bones, that I will never be happy again. I will never be happy again. <br /><br />I do a lot of wandering over the next few weeks, holding Dawson against me and sobbing passionately like a mother straight out of <em>The Iliad</em>, and I no longer wonder what the hell it means to beat ones breast. I put the other kids down for a nap, even Cade who hadn't napped in nearly a year, so I can sit at the kitchen table with a glass of wine and a bottle of my favorite beer, picking at the green Heineken label where it says "<em>Product of Holland</em>" and trying desperately not to get the <a href=http://www.ndsccenter.org/resources/package1.php><strong>irony</strong></a>. Dawson is jaundiced, so sleepy, barely eating, I am convinced he is not going to survive. And sometimes I cry out that it's okay, to just get it over with and let me go back to my previously scheduled program. But then I spray tearful kisses against Dawson's face and the thought of losing him is even more terrible than the current twist of emotions in my chest and all I can say is to please, please, let me keep him.<br /><br />And then I am coming out of that fog, rubbing my eyes and trying to find some decent footing. And most of the time I am OKAY. But every once in a while I remember Down syndrome and I am crushed all over again. I am changing Dawson's diaper while he stares up at me knowingly - oh and he has Down syndrome. I am holding him steady on my lap and pat-pat-patting out the burp I can hear in his chest - oh and he has Down syndrome. I am taking more pictures than I ever have before and I am scrutinizing every single one of them until I find the ones where he looks least like he has Down syndrome. Those are the ones I want to share. And I ask myself the question we all ask - will it always be like this?<br /><br />Eventually I am convinced it won't be. I am in love with my little boy and see only his perfectly round cheeks, his pink bow lips and the way he forces me to drag goodness out of myself. I am not happy again. I am a new thing, a thing I never knew before, a thing the word "happy" barely touches. I cry nearly every night for the next 10 months as I rock my angel to sleep, wild, grateful tears. I have been flung so completely from my sorrow as if from a sling-shot and I know only. this. bliss.<br /><br />Then we are finding Emerson; I am lashing out with this new love and making crazy plans. And I am waiting, and waiting and dying a little bit more each day. Maybe it wasn't a sling shot but a tennis racket and I can see the path of the rebound ahead of me. And then she is here, and she is not my angel, she is Down syndrome. Oh and she is Emerson. And I realize the goodness dragged out can slink back in, finding its spot still warm. And I hate Down syndrome. One night I find myself crying again, rocking Dawson to sleep in the girls' room, crying to the tune of Emerson's harsh grinding and Dawson desperately pulling air through too-small passageways. And I hate Down syndrome. For the first time since those early weeks I hate Down syndrome even in Dawson. <br /><br />And now I have taken myself out of the tennis match. I no longer swing from ecstasy to agony. I find fault in Down syndrome when Emerson barely breaks 300 calories. But I marvel at its resourcefulness when she pulls herself up on once-weak legs to bat a cup off the coffee table so she can get a drink. I cried when Dawson sat in the hospital with pneumonia, but I cried tonight too when he grabbed my face and brushed his lips against my mouth and said, "I lub oo." I am content knowing that if someone had offered me a magic drug during my pregnancy to remove that pesky extra chromosome - and the same to Emerson's mother - and I did not know the beauty of these two souls, I would have taken it. But I DO know them and so the thought of either of them being different is a terrible one and I can only be glad such magic doesn't exist. They bring me joy and sadness, they make the everyday extraordinary, the smallest accomplishment the greatest feat, they bring balance, and oh yes, they have Down syndrome. And I think this will be where I settle in. Here in The Middle, you know, just like Jimmy Eat World says.<br /><br /><em>It just takes some time,<br />Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride.<br />Everything, everything will be just fine,<br />Everything, everything will be alright.</em><br /><br />Emerson after waking up and Dawson trying to "catch" the light. :)<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjidmSAvXYBXbKB4L61XZlr8jlt21Sr9uarhtL7zTH3LkNh4bhEzK_pVVJLomslHfjRK6IBy8vXPxKs6QGdOc4nJJpIbGxamAUaSNhU5dQFQFcE5vlQPFBC_Q0Tg1JQBOxeCxzGMDrYrRgH/s1600-h/e2yfeb9.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 275px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjidmSAvXYBXbKB4L61XZlr8jlt21Sr9uarhtL7zTH3LkNh4bhEzK_pVVJLomslHfjRK6IBy8vXPxKs6QGdOc4nJJpIbGxamAUaSNhU5dQFQFcE5vlQPFBC_Q0Tg1JQBOxeCxzGMDrYrRgH/s400/e2yfeb9.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5434976885345433554" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4VO9lSqpUQugSLKOUvxJmzoCSwUU9aIA_A2UWetegGqfXIadrzrG6gD2gD3WWt3ri9WM1s1PEvgLWaUwOYQaGBVK8BvnrG8JCNaFdbZgQy4EqU6G627S64zyEAMpAW4dmQfrIqhS2Sut/s1600-h/d2yfeb1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 293px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS4VO9lSqpUQugSLKOUvxJmzoCSwUU9aIA_A2UWetegGqfXIadrzrG6gD2gD3WWt3ri9WM1s1PEvgLWaUwOYQaGBVK8BvnrG8JCNaFdbZgQy4EqU6G627S64zyEAMpAW4dmQfrIqhS2Sut/s400/d2yfeb1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5434976883273817330" /></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-61304281551095311192010-02-04T13:34:00.005-05:002010-02-04T13:58:57.196-05:00an open letter to Beech-Nut<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYFk5ZqBURMgEQyXlEJ57QWibEz27Q6emsRf5076laNRq-AOzse87OICZbjZ4M8ku6_qMqwQTvGtcIeJOCPp5ePfZi_S4WcfGLE3NlCwbdVnWIzuR5LcVudeKW4yeJkck4Z2Rj8BmFGxS/s1600-h/bntt.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 291px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMYFk5ZqBURMgEQyXlEJ57QWibEz27Q6emsRf5076laNRq-AOzse87OICZbjZ4M8ku6_qMqwQTvGtcIeJOCPp5ePfZi_S4WcfGLE3NlCwbdVnWIzuR5LcVudeKW4yeJkck4Z2Rj8BmFGxS/s320/bntt.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5434459440038363426" /></a><br /><br />Dear Sir or Madam:<br /><br />It has recently come to my attention that you have made the decision to discontinue your "Good Evening" line of baby foods, reverting back to your usual "2nd Stage" labels. Although this in and of itself is not a huge issue - after all, as long as you don't create a "Toxic Treats" line or something similar, we parents really couldn't care less what little phrase you choose to put on the jar.<br /><br />But it seems that while you were changing the label, someone also decided to tinker with the contents of some of the foods, specifically, Turkey Tetrazzini.<br /><br />I have had a long and troubled relationship with Turkey Tetrazzini, so it is with great inner conflict that I am writing today to mourn it's recent makeover. Previously every single shirt I own has been the recipient of Turkey Tetrazzini's <em>"Water, White Carrots, Turkey, Medium Grain Rice Flour, Enriched Rice Mac Rings, Heavy Cream, Sweet Whey, Fos, Unsalted Butter"</em> and though the tiny golden-orange splatters are annoying, they represent what was for the longest time the only baby food our little Emerson would eat. <br /><br />However, she is not so fond of the new <em>"Carrots, water, turkey, peas, rice flour, heavy cream, enriched rice macaroni rings, unsalted butter"</em> that you are trying to pass of as Turkey Tetrazzini. In fact, she hates it so much that if she even catches sight of the new white and green label she falls into hysteria. <br /><br />I do not understand why you felt it necessary to change the ingredients of this slightly-less-foul-smelling foul-smelling baby "food," especially without notifying the parents of Emersons around the country beforehand. But I am writing to ask you - no, beg you - to find it in your hearts to bring back the old Turkey Tetrazzini. <br /><br />The only other meat/veggie baby food that Emerson will tolerate is Sweet Potatoes & Turkey (not Turkey & Sweet Potatoes - she is very particular) and unfortunately there is only one store in all of Binghamton that carries it and when they're out, well, they're out. And until I can see myself staking out the store to figure out what day and time Beech-Nut is stocked and standing with cash in hand at the delivery area, you are severely impacting our little Emerson's eating capabilities.<br /><br />Although in some ways it is endearing when Emerson turns her head and cries angrily at all but two types of baby food - really, it's one of the few things that is 2-year-old about her - ultimately I just want her to eat.<br /><br />And because of your little marketing decision, she won't be doing that quite as enthusiastically anymore.<br /><br />Really, who likes PEAS anyways?<br /><br />Truly yours (at least for another year or so),<br />A Reluctant Old Turkey Tetrazzini AdvocateChristinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-8332247935250382152010-02-01T15:33:00.006-05:002010-02-01T21:21:34.322-05:00out of sight<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhxROfV8HME97yrJIrrMcQd_tok6Hi-GsGtMOosOM5XaPTgLOGJT-_pNFSgWwfIDnfT7YEEB_RZQRJg5ecbtBTxcWoVj1rKcethzJb5toTfV472mIIH0RvBui_l4ThKT2bmNYgTqy5KKay/s1600-h/Orphans+038.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 206px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhxROfV8HME97yrJIrrMcQd_tok6Hi-GsGtMOosOM5XaPTgLOGJT-_pNFSgWwfIDnfT7YEEB_RZQRJg5ecbtBTxcWoVj1rKcethzJb5toTfV472mIIH0RvBui_l4ThKT2bmNYgTqy5KKay/s320/Orphans+038.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433376418798850210" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUD15-AglIXD0aM2vtCYlHeT-F9utGSiYQgfVtxZFKihX9PUKwpsGk1bE4Wg_XG8y7lyiDosOOe3mUZ7gnBpzJfjmwv9vNpvpNY6UnSF5GInabOOjR13gpf8xxy7zWYNauphF9_lLb5AFZ/s1600-h/100_4125.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUD15-AglIXD0aM2vtCYlHeT-F9utGSiYQgfVtxZFKihX9PUKwpsGk1bE4Wg_XG8y7lyiDosOOe3mUZ7gnBpzJfjmwv9vNpvpNY6UnSF5GInabOOjR13gpf8xxy7zWYNauphF9_lLb5AFZ/s320/100_4125.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433376412255464274" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJmSmVqWnrgoKtG-z2d56DrD1ewGb5c3qrUFK5FzWp-QawSychrMkV-ki10YIK6yhY84qRPf1wAqJrQtGlkmCZYUL7C-cTC4k0CLmiuC5fNEqvzwwQ1-Yqel3fnK-HH-pabsv2qdQQvcm0/s1600-h/100_4141.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJmSmVqWnrgoKtG-z2d56DrD1ewGb5c3qrUFK5FzWp-QawSychrMkV-ki10YIK6yhY84qRPf1wAqJrQtGlkmCZYUL7C-cTC4k0CLmiuC5fNEqvzwwQ1-Yqel3fnK-HH-pabsv2qdQQvcm0/s320/100_4141.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433376408547593490" /></a><br /><br />We are very blessed to live just a short drive down the highway from the <a href=http://www.love4ourboys.blogspot.com>Outman family</a> for many, many reasons. This weekend Emerson was lucky to spend some time with them! I have had so many offers for a little respite over the past few months, and I have always been reluctant to say okay, partly because I am a mom who never goes away from her kids for more than a few hours - unless it's to have a baby or adopt a baby LOL! - and partly because I have been afraid it might be traumatic for Emerson. Last week was a rough one for all of us, especially it seemed for Emerson, who was seeming to regress with sleep and eating and the self-injurous behavior, and with the kids asking to go to the ScienceCenter in Ithaca, I figured it might be good for us to have some separate time.<br /><br />So Em got to play and cuddle with Julie and her little guys (and Julie's sister, <a href=http://www.ourpathlesstraveled.blogspot.com>Lisa</a> and her Eastern European princess, Katie!) and we got to make the hour drive to the museum and out to dinner afterwards, something we haven't done since Emerson started eating baby food. It was strange not having her with us and I admit I kept trying to take the time to figure out how I felt about her being gone.<br /><br />Cade's behavior has taken a turn for the worse over the last couple weeks and after some stressful moments at the museum and restaurant I was reminded that Em really isn't the most challenging child we have LOL. Matt and I both felt like something was off the whole weekend, and when I picked her up I was so happy to see her, I don't think I realized I was really missing her until she was back. :)<br /><br />She did very well during her sleepover with this awesome family and she seemed excited when we picked her up and though she acted a bit angry with me yesterday evening and wouldn't even really make eye contact, this morning she woke up in a fantastic mood and has spent the day happier than I've ever seen her. Even our PT commented that she was just so darn happy. Maybe she loved having a little break from our chaotic household, or maybe she liked waking up in her familiar surroundings, or perhaps we both just needed to be out of sight for a bit to realize how much we really do like each other's company. ^_^<br /><br />It has been refreshing to have her home and smiling again. ^_^<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC0d69r-gXZtXXkKSD_mNf2gQGI6lUaJvSOyMMtFPBS_noxrppyVf60Z3Xyh9Gk0bvBrxQyOzcD7nWT4hFUuph0aqrrRDkTSXWu-qN1-GqMTWY9p8CVhduf5g2nJ1KPequGaIhj3oItW0M/s1600-h/e2yfeb4.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 237px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgC0d69r-gXZtXXkKSD_mNf2gQGI6lUaJvSOyMMtFPBS_noxrppyVf60Z3Xyh9Gk0bvBrxQyOzcD7nWT4hFUuph0aqrrRDkTSXWu-qN1-GqMTWY9p8CVhduf5g2nJ1KPequGaIhj3oItW0M/s320/e2yfeb4.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433464183767370114" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ912F1oH8bs_whQU5lhoJQV3zy_uqcvYatIlowtBhMhR-shoWxJXF4GtmUf_lJrw7eUYGI8HHKjU6Gk2IhJUdvCS3rxISGrJkJErQLHm1Lfz98llMiPdiUEscIVJvQHfkK0FUacw3ugfF/s1600-h/e2yfeb5.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 261px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ912F1oH8bs_whQU5lhoJQV3zy_uqcvYatIlowtBhMhR-shoWxJXF4GtmUf_lJrw7eUYGI8HHKjU6Gk2IhJUdvCS3rxISGrJkJErQLHm1Lfz98llMiPdiUEscIVJvQHfkK0FUacw3ugfF/s320/e2yfeb5.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433464187166546802" /></a><br /><br />I finally caught her silly "pirate eye" look on camera LOL!<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitlNwzex1dCJ1fyLKy6_9dhNKjMIASMBcN71hLoTUt-EB9sA7jp11oJTxWFDqdJOjw9FmZAdhFq4tuoETqm6D9yG16qHuStdaXh6B2xU4C-jBWd3alBhJamkIBebcz9ztNDzSJloLLGmtB/s1600-h/e2yfeb6.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 274px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitlNwzex1dCJ1fyLKy6_9dhNKjMIASMBcN71hLoTUt-EB9sA7jp11oJTxWFDqdJOjw9FmZAdhFq4tuoETqm6D9yG16qHuStdaXh6B2xU4C-jBWd3alBhJamkIBebcz9ztNDzSJloLLGmtB/s320/e2yfeb6.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433464171259584706" /></a><br /><br />I'm gonna getcha!<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIds9N-HsXqHRwJ7gXm2s2nGBx5eYul-tY8CZHexjpKpLUA-lQOiPj1YjjAsEs842o6doeAwlePUZ6XdUSEsXCPls6orbwFewRLqcaVCnO4U95EmxbfDFMWQIXRtFnKhO6jv4k2FTGqTDg/s1600-h/e2yfeb7.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 241px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIds9N-HsXqHRwJ7gXm2s2nGBx5eYul-tY8CZHexjpKpLUA-lQOiPj1YjjAsEs842o6doeAwlePUZ6XdUSEsXCPls6orbwFewRLqcaVCnO4U95EmxbfDFMWQIXRtFnKhO6jv4k2FTGqTDg/s320/e2yfeb7.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433464168086572946" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JbM43hmev1JLhVAq0GGCkVGa3cfucneJ-eRnJwT9526O6hp2jsPJWhGyo0BFgW1Mlg2PFu8jlIh_-dj2ghvK4KBEkLgPP_DPDAKBRaivfZcyVZyIYc0-0SqhE2oeP6le1g47xNaAuC9t/s1600-h/e2yfeb8.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 220px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5JbM43hmev1JLhVAq0GGCkVGa3cfucneJ-eRnJwT9526O6hp2jsPJWhGyo0BFgW1Mlg2PFu8jlIh_-dj2ghvK4KBEkLgPP_DPDAKBRaivfZcyVZyIYc0-0SqhE2oeP6le1g47xNaAuC9t/s320/e2yfeb8.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433464163883942882" /></a><br /><br />Too sweet. :)<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw1STJickw1PgeV-ZaTomFygpFxOxC-OME-1UNZ-zMyKNNJFVnmiltiJGOnUYYIfogSFvwN-b9uLnXN-zJ3aIzsYdXoNEOnS4Nl5CUebJ7YyR36EIn9o4uQoVnLbaPYNF5GC4T7o0DBG7Q/s1600-h/defeb102.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 281px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiw1STJickw1PgeV-ZaTomFygpFxOxC-OME-1UNZ-zMyKNNJFVnmiltiJGOnUYYIfogSFvwN-b9uLnXN-zJ3aIzsYdXoNEOnS4Nl5CUebJ7YyR36EIn9o4uQoVnLbaPYNF5GC4T7o0DBG7Q/s320/defeb102.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5433464393870839154" /></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-84767818402001604042010-01-26T23:11:00.005-05:002010-01-26T23:37:27.461-05:00a way with words<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtnDyurG30zRGdIkJszGHoLHGJbLygE_uuPD7LHMgeCNRnpilvI1bpnHJVw_mKgfZlzs0AmwJtvP5jxwKO_HsO8zZkYyBGXtXwVb5tCvIYviNgwtxW7z-eucVXrkS6YL7GsyghA7hYmA_/s1600-h/d2yjan2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 310px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbtnDyurG30zRGdIkJszGHoLHGJbLygE_uuPD7LHMgeCNRnpilvI1bpnHJVw_mKgfZlzs0AmwJtvP5jxwKO_HsO8zZkYyBGXtXwVb5tCvIYviNgwtxW7z-eucVXrkS6YL7GsyghA7hYmA_/s400/d2yjan2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431267543968930098" /></a><br /><br />I walked into the bathroom the other night in search of Dawson (who loves to play in the bathroom for unknown reasons) only to discover not only had he figured out how to open the toilet seat, but he'd also taken the liberty to grab the plunger and get to work, all while chanting "Plunge, plunge, plunge..." Funny, I didn't think that was a high-frequency word in our house but geesh, I guess it's used enough. ^_^ And since I was not lucky enough to happen to be carrying my camera, after grabbing him and washing his hands I went and got it, came back and restaged the scene (bad mommy!) LOL!<br /><br />Dawson seems to be picking up on language as we go now - he learned "snow" and "sand" when we took the kids to the park to ice skate the other weekend. Yesterday he said "light" when I turned the oven light on and today he surprised me with a perfectly pronounced "hammer" while he was working on his Elmo tool bench. <br /><br />He is still pushing his little carts around the house and amazingly within just a matter of a few days he figured out how to turn it himself. I could've danced when he first did it - no more dashing to his screams for help when he hits the end of the hallway heh! Sunday night I was sitting in the living room (pumping, if you must know!) and I turned my head and my heart stopped for a second when I saw Dawson standing there. Nobody and no object around him, just standing there like he was on his way to the kitchen for a snack. He has been trying to push himself to standing through a bear stance but he never quite gets his body straightened up - except that time! I am so excited for him to start walking on his own. So, so soon! :)<br /><br />Emerson also said her first word (other than her little "hi" sound she makes in greeting) and how cute that it was Dawson's first word, too. "Ball!" I think she is trying to say "baby" too as she babbles "bay-bah" whenever I sit with her with Holden in my arms. She has signed "eat" a few times, too. Just like Dawson, her trouble is consistency and the fact that she knows we can figure out what she wants most of the time. It's nice to think though that maybe things are starting to click together in that little head of hers! :)<br /><br />Holden is doing great - he is around 16 lbs now (yes, at 3 months old!) and smiles and laughs and coos and he also says "Hi" in greeting or in response to our "hi" - probably just imitation right now but boy he sure says it well! He loves Dawson and giggles whenever he's in his line of vision. He is starting to roll over both from back to tummy and tummy to back - oh it goes so fast!<br /><br />We got Cade's ADHD testing results and it's about a 95% chance of an ADHD diagnosis. Next step is to have a medical doctor make the official diagnosis. It doesn't change much, it's just a man-made term after all, but it's good to know so we can start looking into specific discipline techniques and do what we can to help him handle life better.<br /><br />Parker amazes us and is pretty far ahead the other kids in his PreK class. He can write his name for the most part (he forgets the "a" - stinkin' letter!), knows the days of the week and his drawing skills are great. We shouldn't be surprised with his awesome fine motor skills - he was unscrewing the outlet covers with a screwdriver and opening child-proof prescription bottles at 2 LOL!<br /><br />Macy's doing well too - we are still working on potty-training (why oh why are all my kids so stubborn?) and she seems very comfortable with the idea of going to school this fall. <br /><br />And that concludes this episode of Child Round-Up, stay tuned for some pictures! :)<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZa5ZOs3SYN7kB4Pc3F1iQVrtR4Sk1_p0qS-lKiRtzwMcrFr5F3Um_GDdToJscWd-4DdLuqIxqnGR46WLFvbhsisuM5klHpvUk4A5wZ-5Z_1ekkqWaupvsbd9JIK9dOA1mOJsAGQWrQA5/s1600-h/d2yjan1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 234px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsZa5ZOs3SYN7kB4Pc3F1iQVrtR4Sk1_p0qS-lKiRtzwMcrFr5F3Um_GDdToJscWd-4DdLuqIxqnGR46WLFvbhsisuM5klHpvUk4A5wZ-5Z_1ekkqWaupvsbd9JIK9dOA1mOJsAGQWrQA5/s320/d2yjan1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431272500983578754" /></a><br /><br />For some reason Em likes to climb up on boxes - ANY box. If it's low enough she backs herself up onto it LOL.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_ziZZH5GrKUrLMod8FTPECMpEC4RtyHuDgiwUyQCGs_NymzZLAcvd-68kbtSLgtZWg97Phu_vNRTzCDMYPtBk8amCPQwOQpvY9045VLW4MDOt3eD1PvdyE6mpEmpodOAoL84hODaE6JO/s1600-h/e2yjan1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 233px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_ziZZH5GrKUrLMod8FTPECMpEC4RtyHuDgiwUyQCGs_NymzZLAcvd-68kbtSLgtZWg97Phu_vNRTzCDMYPtBk8amCPQwOQpvY9045VLW4MDOt3eD1PvdyE6mpEmpodOAoL84hODaE6JO/s320/e2yjan1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431272496134032402" /></a><br /><br />Her hair is getting so long - she is starting to look like a big girl now!<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzOVj_gQCUrMo4QMzVVybYR36LmpbSAxAQuc2ZqqtEIjf5flKnRMaCl95JoHJPID9owJ-5sgJnJxOO-yrPGFkuPZITXYQZDbqFLOrsQeivRSFfpkDYPxYbQArt77TDGc2W836YcpmcyosS/s1600-h/e2yfeb1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 244px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzOVj_gQCUrMo4QMzVVybYR36LmpbSAxAQuc2ZqqtEIjf5flKnRMaCl95JoHJPID9owJ-5sgJnJxOO-yrPGFkuPZITXYQZDbqFLOrsQeivRSFfpkDYPxYbQArt77TDGc2W836YcpmcyosS/s320/e2yfeb1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431272495327540242" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLsK8p4Wxq79oC4bCxDpyEa2spt5Qlk1cpwfjiFiuRRBZ18CvdunnhYzavYoLAX2OURpUaXdcXAIdTMLCjVIKUxWC9XEXrcB0C5KnEIAoXVecJJz5OHsoPIAz7LL-HfO9Fz3coTYQ6VHN/s1600-h/e2yfeb3.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 249px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMLsK8p4Wxq79oC4bCxDpyEa2spt5Qlk1cpwfjiFiuRRBZ18CvdunnhYzavYoLAX2OURpUaXdcXAIdTMLCjVIKUxWC9XEXrcB0C5KnEIAoXVecJJz5OHsoPIAz7LL-HfO9Fz3coTYQ6VHN/s320/e2yfeb3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431272494115072594" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW7QYQN-WBjiNPENUBoinIITeH6K4LYVe8OtQyxxCOfIIQLPhq58kPKQokAVXEuUsUFzwI3UFYncXDDCFRit41IR4Jr_i0u9bJuuoSrIuNTqVcrT6XAFCFGmGF13IZJ-KGSvIkSqzdvP2y/s1600-h/defeb091.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW7QYQN-WBjiNPENUBoinIITeH6K4LYVe8OtQyxxCOfIIQLPhq58kPKQokAVXEuUsUFzwI3UFYncXDDCFRit41IR4Jr_i0u9bJuuoSrIuNTqVcrT6XAFCFGmGF13IZJ-KGSvIkSqzdvP2y/s320/defeb091.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431272482871086290" /></a><br /><br />My little cutie pie.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHl5NUpnHGkVlz5ir1f1xxilYSC3nBrGrL7YNSVA4so5Zo1L9-tXlqTZshx3wk4g2fyfrCuns8S-mPIxPeDdvNjY6s1Jid4QHa8bSHn1DLD_mblRQ_HbyzOKymHZol87Idcx1h0aMhyphenhyphenG2x/s1600-h/h2m1.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 205px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHl5NUpnHGkVlz5ir1f1xxilYSC3nBrGrL7YNSVA4so5Zo1L9-tXlqTZshx3wk4g2fyfrCuns8S-mPIxPeDdvNjY6s1Jid4QHa8bSHn1DLD_mblRQ_HbyzOKymHZol87Idcx1h0aMhyphenhyphenG2x/s320/h2m1.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431273180486229442" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkw2Aih8nwu8c1w9izAaWED57rJNwkjG8nb-G-NYlix3CF5UChIwdhBXe19OlhQk3bpArGtMLnsJxD2uBSAO8sob29AKxSu4UTwAL6Y61FYxPmV6Mx_LN1L2bE2IvOgoMIYdDNg_Bq5B5P/s1600-h/h2m2.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 259px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkw2Aih8nwu8c1w9izAaWED57rJNwkjG8nb-G-NYlix3CF5UChIwdhBXe19OlhQk3bpArGtMLnsJxD2uBSAO8sob29AKxSu4UTwAL6Y61FYxPmV6Mx_LN1L2bE2IvOgoMIYdDNg_Bq5B5P/s320/h2m2.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431273173738846290" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6SEOzWxkpYKsUCaDedNfpiBHqssT6si2wllYW5APgk87SIXThTLu5x6L9QsBwzYhtWHiFc7QsWvP2xARem7_S-9HR8WqlQqLGwASG1kVS-ry-1o-0gNJMQvTcE8EgH4XGBUJasFE48OK/s1600-h/h2m3.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 250px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjN6SEOzWxkpYKsUCaDedNfpiBHqssT6si2wllYW5APgk87SIXThTLu5x6L9QsBwzYhtWHiFc7QsWvP2xARem7_S-9HR8WqlQqLGwASG1kVS-ry-1o-0gNJMQvTcE8EgH4XGBUJasFE48OK/s320/h2m3.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431273167934431378" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8irqvwiFlNOD8GGTh6n-Nu96JeBUanRUUCvyqDqRbWqpk9URzumPthZHekQTCA8rK4Bs7Tt6BZ7mQ1IoLmTCPr1fdwgaus-el6Qlj3908U1gHD7I0SwGHJRIV_opvf4ruCVK6-Dmtryfp/s1600-h/h2m4.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 229px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8irqvwiFlNOD8GGTh6n-Nu96JeBUanRUUCvyqDqRbWqpk9URzumPthZHekQTCA8rK4Bs7Tt6BZ7mQ1IoLmTCPr1fdwgaus-el6Qlj3908U1gHD7I0SwGHJRIV_opvf4ruCVK6-Dmtryfp/s320/h2m4.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5431273167818068482" /></a>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-21686093043079847292010-01-11T22:42:00.004-05:002010-01-11T23:02:30.381-05:00tickled pink<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HyfUJuqjw7s1vFMUEG4yvkgFYO14gTLUiLjdJ2E6O7ogq-f0ZPv7348NyWmLdWjTvaEw5fggoGFGewJjleVwc2G119u6Hc387sWFbONMAwHCOAagPs906HEC3wqaCshQnMBSqQiRp9hC/s1600-h/pinkie.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 160px; height: 159px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0HyfUJuqjw7s1vFMUEG4yvkgFYO14gTLUiLjdJ2E6O7ogq-f0ZPv7348NyWmLdWjTvaEw5fggoGFGewJjleVwc2G119u6Hc387sWFbONMAwHCOAagPs906HEC3wqaCshQnMBSqQiRp9hC/s320/pinkie.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5425694397556224994" /></a><br /><br />My Mini is here! And it's just as pink as the above picture shows (I was just too lazy to take a real pic; please accept this stock photo instead LOL) - I love it! ^_^<br /><br />My suddenly gargantuan hands are still getting used to this tiny little keyboard and this is the first HP I've ever owned so some of the key placements are throwing me off and the screen is so much smaller than I'm used to I keep thinking there's something wrong with my glasses but hey, it's PINK!! :)<br /><br />Emerson just finished her antibiotic course and the ENT did agree to call in a prescription for ear drops last week so she seems to be feeling better. Her ears had been gushing disgusting snotty fluid but that has since stopped. Her appointment is on Thursday so hopefully we will find out what's going on in there. She is still grinding her teeth a lot, but with a little less severity. I'm trying my best to maintain sanity around the sound, which perhaps results in me walking around gritting my teeth and twitching one eye like some ridiculous cartoon character, but oh well - did I mention my Mini is pink?<br /><br />We are having a lot of behavior issues with Cade lately and as we've been poking at the idea since he was 18 months old we finally asked the school psychologist to please start testing for ADHD. He's almost 6 so the whole "he's too young, let's wait a bit" response we've gotten from his pediatricians for the last 4 years just isn't flying anymore. <br /><br />My days can be pretty overwhelming. Half of our kids are high-needs and sometimes I find myself glancing at the other moms in the preK parking lot who just have two or three seemingly typical kiddos with a little wistfulness. Can we switch for a day? <br /><br />Ah, but then I'd miss out on a lot of fun stuff too. And of course, those other moms probably don't have pink Minis. ^_~Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-52443037808697733532010-01-05T21:20:00.004-05:002010-01-06T01:25:53.100-05:00peek-a-booEmerson had such a great day today, even with the constant grinding on both sides. I think being certain there is a physical problem that can hopefully be fixed behind its intensity gave me much more patience for the awful sound.<br /><br />We won't knoww for sure what the issue is with her ears until her ENT visit on the 14th, but her pedi appointment tonight revealed both ears completely packed with thick fluid. I'm not sure if one or both tubes has come out, is not working properly, if she has a ruptured eardrum or if the tubes are still in place and functioning but it's still not enough to handle the fluid, but our pedi couldn't see anything in there because they are so filled. I have to think this is incredibly uncomfortable for her. It's very strange because after she had the wax removed from her ears a couple months ago, she stopped grinding completely. She was grind-free for about 3 weeks, until she had the PE tubes placed. Then about 2 days after the surgery she started grinding again and it has just gotten worse and worse until it got to its current intensity. There is some connection and I really hope the ENT can make it and find the solution. I hate that she has to wait until the 14th with all that gunk in her ears. :( We may have to search out a new non-pediatric ENT (this is the only one in our area) who is more responsive. I plan to call them tomorrow to at least see if we can get a prescription for some drops to help loosen the fluid before the appointment - I hate to wait 9 days just to be told she needs a course of drops before they can assess anything.<br /><br />I appreciate so much all of the amazingly supportive comments and emails I've received. I didn't really expect anyone to come to my defense but I am humbled that so many have. I have locked the comments on the prior apparently controversial posts and will be moderating comments before publishing going forward. That's not to say that I won't allow critical comments, but I like having the opportunity to rebutt a comment immediately in the comment section, instead of filling up the main blog page with back-and-forth stuff. I will continue to be honest about my ups and downs, though with one of my resolutions being to blog more, hopefully you will see more ups than I show right now.<br /><br />Following are two videos. The bottom one I took this morning. <br />I didn't mean for it to get so long but just like with Dawson I'm always afraid to stop taping and miss something cute. :) I realized while watching it back that she's now pivoting while sitting - that's new! And she's learned peek-a-boo from her little brother; this is exactly how Dawson plays it. <em>(Onetrumedia isn't working for me right now, so I have to settle for the first 2 minutes with Dropshots - hopefully I can get the rest uploaded soon to share the cuteness!) </em>Oh and apparently my scale was off last week - she was 20 lbs, 1 oz at the doctor's tonight!<br /><br />The first video though is from our second day with her in Serbia. I never posted it because of the snail-like internet connection in the apartment, and tonight was the first time I've watched it back. I got a little teary, remembering how I wasn't sure what to say, what name to call her, or if she'd even hear me. Remembering how afraid I was that she would never truly smile. Sometimes I still see the little girl in this video and I know she will always be there. But she isn't so good at playing peek-a-boo, and so she's seen less and less these days. ^_^<br /><br /><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bHQ9MTI2Mjc1ODA4NjAwMCZwdD*xMjYyNzU4MTE4NzgxJnA9MTI1MjEmZD*mbj1ibG9nZ2VyJmc9MSZvPTk3MGZkZmFmZTZiZTQzNzE4ZDk3NjVkN2E2OTg2MjEwJm9mPTA=.gif" /><center><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" width="425" height="381"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dropshots.com/dropshots.swf?p=0&u=http://media7.dropshots.com/photos/66723/20090503/091924.flv&l=http://www.dropshots.com/fyrestar#date/2009-05-03/09:19:24&d=1" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /><embed src="http://www.dropshots.com/dropshots.swf?p=0&u=http://media7.dropshots.com/photos/66723/20090503/091924.flv&l=http://www.dropshots.com/fyrestar#date/2009-05-03/09:19:24&d=1" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="381"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-family:arial; font-size:8pt;"><a href="http://www.dropshots.com/">Photo Sharing</a> - <a href="http://www.dropshots.com/">Video Sharing</a> - <a href="http://www.qualityphotoprints.com/">Photo Printing</a></span></center><br /><br /><img style="visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;" border=0 width=0 height=0 src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bHQ9MTI2Mjc1ODQwNDcwMyZwdD*xMjYyNzU4NDI*NDA2JnA9MTI1MjEmZD*mbj1ibG9nZ2VyJmc9MSZvPTk3MGZkZmFmZTZiZTQzNzE4ZDk3NjVkN2E2OTg2MjEwJm9mPTA=.gif" /><center><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" width="425" height="381"><param name="movie" value="http://www.dropshots.com/dropshots.swf?p=0&u=http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/66723/20091212/205928.flv&l=http://www.dropshots.com/fyrestar#date/2009-12-12/20:59:28&d=1" /><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="sameDomain" /><embed src="http://www.dropshots.com/dropshots.swf?p=0&u=http://media8.dropshots.com/photos/66723/20091212/205928.flv&l=http://www.dropshots.com/fyrestar#date/2009-12-12/20:59:28&d=1" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="sameDomain" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="381"></embed></object><br /><span style="font-family:arial; font-size:8pt;"><a href="http://www.dropshots.com/">Photo Sharing</a> - <a href="http://www.dropshots.com/">Video Sharing</a> - <a href="http://www.qualityphotoprints.com/">Photo Printing</a></span></center>Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-57848198781436740142010-01-05T00:24:00.008-05:002010-01-06T01:24:25.297-05:00goSeriously, this is what I'm talking about in judgement.<br /><br /><blockquote>Well all this shows to those who are already concerned for your families situation is that she "was" happy before the baby was born?? And after she has become like a zombie.</blockquote><br /><br />The post comments are tame compared to emails from two people I have received.<br /><br />Seriously, I have to PROVE to some readers that Emerson is still happy today merely because I posted a video of TWO MINUTES of her checking out during her grinding? Two minutes out of her entire day? Who wouldn't be defensive given comments like that? I guess if someone makes a hurtful and unfounded comment you're not allowed to feel angry and upset by it - that just makes you "defensive" which certainly means the hurtful comment was accurate, right? Truly flawed logic. I'm happy to post a video from today of her playing and actually engaging with us but honestly, why should I have to?<br /><br />Ridiculous. If you can't fathom the possibility that someone can feel frustrated, upset and conflicted about their child's behavior while still providing proper attention and care for that child then you haven't known very many real life parents. And if that's the case, stop filling up my blog and my inbox with these sort of negative comments.<br /><br />A good rule of thumb: if you wouldn't say it to someone's face in real life, don't say it online. So if you have anything further irrational, inflammatory or downright mean to say to me, make a video of yourself saying it and post it. And see the pure unkindness in yourself and be surprised and be ashamed. Doing anything less is mere cowardice.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5256119868859800733.post-28350072505221744362010-01-04T22:20:00.003-05:002010-01-06T01:24:14.203-05:00how not to judge<div align=right><em>"Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then it will gradually yield to him."</em><br />- Goethe</div><br /><br />It's a bit strange to be posting so much after such frequent droughts. :) <br />But since I made my "resolutions" post I have been assaulted by a few, but buoyed up by far more, and it wouldn't make sense not to talk about such an experience.<br /><br />It seems a couple people think that the video of Em's grinding somehow proves that she is utterly miserable with our family and is doing worse than she was in the orphanage. I'm still amazed how anyone can so freely (mis)judge someone they've never met, but as I've been picking through my thoughts about all this today I realize I shouldn't be too surprised. I was - and really still am sometimes - guilty of the same. <br /><br />Children with special needs teach us so many things. But I have come to realize that the most precious lesson is that of judgement. <br /><br />Before Dawson's diagnosis, I couldn't understand why a mother couldn't just accept the child life had given her. But then I felt her anguish and fear myself, and I learned how not to judge.<br /><br />Before we brought Emerson home, I couldn't understand why women with fertility struggles didn't just adopt - it was all the same to the woman, after all, and the kids needed help. But then I experienced firsthand the slow bonding with another's child versus the easier bond with a biological baby, and I learned how not to judge.<br /><br />Before raising a child with more severe special needs, I couldn't understand why any woman would ever even think about terminating after a prenatal diagnosis. But then I felt the heartbreak of seeing a child struggle just to be part of her surroundings and though I still believe it is not the right decision, I now have nothing but compassion for those moms. I learned how not to judge.<br /><br />Before adopting a previously institutionalized child, I couldn't understand how any family could ever, ever disrupt. I had never even heard of such a thing and I will never forget coming across a family who had disrupted for the first time before we traveled to Serbia and sharing my disbelief - and even disgust - with Matt. But then I experienced firsthand the pain of stressful behaviors and problems with attachment and I understood and my heart broke for any family that ever walked this path before me. I learned how not to judge.<br /><br />Dawson and Emerson have both shown me every step of the way how to be not a better person, but more of a real person. These children are angels - angels undeserved, for sure - not because of their unique perfection but because of their unique ability to show us that imperfection is perfect, their amazing gift to teach us how not to judge others but especially how not to judge ourselves.<br /><br />If you haven't yet learned those lessons, I hope someday you will. In the meantime, I will continue to share honestly - albeit somewhat dramatically! - what it is like for many of us on this journey. I am not alone, and for those reading this who have or who will share some of these same doubts, fears and negative emotions - YOU are not alone.<br /><br />I took another video of Em today while she was playing in the living room but when I was uploading that I came across this older one on my camera and I couldn't help but post this instead. This is from August or so. This is my Em. The one who shares her brother's smile that seems to come from some deep joyful place within that the rest of us can only experience in glimpses. Sometimes she is hiding, but she is there. I get to see her everyday and the criticism I have received has only made me more determined not to let myself get swallowed by emotions, not to forget that decisions made with a cool head instead of a rash judgement are always the best ones, and not to give up.<br /><br /><div><embed src="http://www.onetruemedia.com/share_view_player?p=a22c9ab7567ef46dad1c3a" quality="high" scale="noscale" width="408" height="382" wmode="transparent" name="FLVPlayer" salign="LT" flashvars="&p=a22c9ab7567ef46dad1c3a&skin_id=701&host=http://www.onetruemedia.com" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed><div style="margin:0px;font:12px/13px verdana,arial,sans-serif;line-height:20px;padding-bottom:15px;width:408px;text-align:center;"><a href="http://www.onetruemedia.com/landing?&utm_source=emplay&utm_medium=txt3" target="_blank" style="text-decoration:none;">Make video montages at <span style="text-decoration:underline;">www.OneTrueMedia.com</span></a></div></div><br /><br />Today during lunch Em was grinding so hard she was crying after each time. But she kept doing it, like she couldn't stop. And suddenly I felt absolutely certain that she was in pain. The grinding is a habit for her, I think, but the way she has been lost in it lately is not like her. We originally thought the fluid in her ears was responsible for the grinding, but after the PE tubes were placed the grinding got even worse. But something is not right in there. We called her ENT this afternoon asking for an appointment. They won't see her before the 14th unless there is a cancelation so she'll be going to the pedi tomorrow in the meantime in hopes he might see something in there. <br /><br />We will figure this out.Christinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09811844262357348540noreply@blogger.com